Wageningen, 11 November 2002 - What's new in EthoVision 3.0 
  

EthoVision 3.0 is the only video tracking system available today that allows you to track from digital video file (MPEG). This feature has many advantages. For instance, when tracking from a digital video file, EthoVision offers two acquisition modes. Next to real-time acquisition, the speed can be adjusted to the highest rate possible, while ensuring that no frames are lost.

This means that:

• You gain valuable time when you have a simple experimental setup: an experiment of 30 minutes can be tracked in much less time.
• Tracking is always perfect: even with a more complex setup or high sample rate no samples are missed.

There are also many practical advantages, like:

• Tracking from digital video file can be done everywhere, also on a notebook. So you can run EthoVision in the lab, the office or even at home.
• There is no quality loss over time. Digital media files can be stored and copied without losing information. If you have ever reviewed an old videotape, you know what this means.
• You can store five hours of video on one DVD (twice as much as on a normal video tape) and get rid of piles of videotapes.

In general, the experiment control functionality links user-defined conditions to specific actions. In EthoVision 3.0 this feature has been greatly expanded, allowing you to automate experiments that could not be automated before. 

• Experiment Control: Actions to control external devices - TTL-out. You can control external devices by specifying actions to the parallel port of your computer. When a condition is true, a signal (TTL-out) is sent to a pin on the parallel port of your computer.
• Experiment Control: Conditions based on behavior. Besides temporal and spatial conditions, you can now create conditions using real-time behavioral information. Any behavior scored manually (using the Manual Event Recorder within EthoVision) or automatically through the new Event Logging Interface (see the text box below) can be used to create a condition. Thus, conditions can be connected to the occurrence of specific body postures or behavioral interactions (scored by the user) or any switch closure or TTL-in pulse (the animal pressing a lever, poking its nose into a hole, etc.). All conditions (temporal, spatial and behavioral) can be used once (the first time the condition is met) or repeatedly (e.g. every time the condition is met during the trial). During data acquisition all actions EthoVision takes can be viewed in the new Acquisition Log Window.
• Experiment Control: A few applications. Using the new experiment control functionality you can automate a wide range of experiments. For instance:
  • Close a door in a radial maze after the rat has visited the corresponding arm.
  • Give an electric shock when the mouse has been in the left compartment for more than 10 seconds.
  • Raise the ‘Atlantis’ platform in a water maze when the mouse has reached the correct quadrant and stays there for 2.5 seconds.
  • Operate a feeder in a Skinner box after the rat has pressed the lever 10 times.
  • Switch on a light.
  • Present an auditory signal.

• EthoVision distinguishes three states: immobility, mobility and strong mobility.
• The mobility parameter is determined for each animal individually.
• You can analyze frequency, duration, latency to first occurence etc. for all three states (immobility, mobility and strong mobility).  

• More reliable and faster tracking.
• Automation of more complex experiments.
• Increased flexibility.
• Minimal need for user intervention.
• Minimal need for archiving space.