CowLog is a software for recording behaviors from digital video developed in the Research Center for Animal Welfare and Department of Agricultural Sciences in the University of Helsinki. We created CowLog, because we wanted a free easy to use program for coding digital video. CowLog is open source software distributed under the GPLv3 license and it is therefore free to use and modify. If you use the software for your publications, please cite our paper.

CowLog is lightweight software, which tracks the time code from video files, and records the time with the coded behavior to a data file. The program reads all common digital video formats and works in all major operating systems: Linux (Ubuntu), Windows and Mac OS X.

Core features:

• Code up to 24 behaviors from a single digital video
• Cross-platform: Linux, Windows and Mac OS X
• Basic data analysis with R package Animal, which can calculate the frequencies, bout durations and total durations of the coded behaviors for both states and events. Animal is distribured via CRAN.
• Uses MPlayer to play the videos and has support for all common codecs and many less common codecs
• Support for high speed video
• Coding window written with Python and PyQT4

Do not hesitate to contact us if you run into problems when using CowLog, want to participate in development or simply want to let us know that you are using the software: matti.pastell(at)helsinki.fi. You can also report bugs or submit a blueprint in Launchpad.