Basic Lab Tour

Welcome to an exciting "idea repository" for your new research or product testing lab.

This page is intended to guide you through a series of research labs which uses various equipment. It will explain the purpose of each piece of equipment and give examples of reasons for designing a lab in a particular fashion.

  • Each diagram doubles as an image map, allowing you to navigate to other sections of the site, to learn more about specific hardware and software.
  • The other sections appear in the original navigation window while the pop-up diagram remains on top.
  • These labs are meant to serve as examples only; the equipment described may be used in almost any configuration imaginable.
  • Please contact TRC for more information about a no-cost lab designed specifically for your needs.
  • For more detailed explanations of various lab configurations, go to the Lab PDF page.

A lab may be defined as "any combination of hardware and software used for research/product testing purposes". A simple TRC lab might be nothing more than a computer with Observational Coding System-Live (OCS-Live) software on it. This may be all that is necessary for researchers/product testers who only wish to timestamp their codes.

Clicking on the lab diagram of choice takes you to a brief description of a lab configuration and allows you to access a diagram of the chosen lab, with greater details available.

  1. Basic Portable Lab
  2. Basic Fixed Lab
  3. Fixed Lab with Multiple Cameras and Digital Mixer
  4. Fixed Lab with Audio Equipment
  5. Fixed Lab with Scan Converter, two VCRs, and two Monitors
  6. Fixed Lab with Switching Device

The Lab Tour

Diagram 1: Basic Portable Lab

For a more lasting record of the observation subject, the lab can include a camera and VCR. Routing the video through a PC-VC card on the computer enables the OCS software to put timecode on it before it reaches the VCR. This synchronizes the timecodes in the dataset with the time recorded on the video, allowing for easier review of the observations. Also, adding a camera to the lab makes it possible to take only the camera to the observation site, leaving the coding for later. 

Diagram 2: Basic Fixed Lab

Some research projects require a different sort of lab configuration. For example, software usability and some psychology research may require observation of a person or persons in a specific room set up for observation. Since this research usually involves the researchers coming to the lab rather than the lab traveling with the researchers, these labs can be called fixed labs.

Diagram 3: Fixed Lab with Multiple Cameras and Digital Mixer

Because fixed labs are usually meant to stay in one place, they can accommodate a large range of additional hardware. For example, multiple cameras allow multiple viewing angles. If one or more of the cameras is going to be in the room with the subject(s), the Pan-Tilt-Zoom (PTZ) software/hardware combination will allow someone outside the room to control the cameras. A digital mixer may also come in handy. It can take two input lines and create one output which combines or segues between the two inputs in a variety of ways.

Diagram 4: Fixed Lab with Audio Equipment

Audio equipment such as microphones and speakers, combined with the TRC Audio Box, gives the researchers the ability to record verbal communications between the room and the outside. It is also possible to use this equipment to do narrative voice-overs on the audio track of a video tape. A wide variety of audio equipment may be added to both simple and complex labs, whether fixed or portable, and the audio box itself may be customized to suit your needs.

Diagram 5: Fixed Lab with Scan Converter, two VCRs, and two Monitors

Software usability researchers frequently want a way to record what is happening on the screen of the computer being observed; a scan converter provides conversion from digital screen images to analog images for video tape. This lab also has an extra VCR; this allows the researchers to record two videos at once. It also allows video editing with VES, which can use the timecode inserted by the PC-VC card and the codes in a dataset to automatically produce edits. An additional monitor gives the researchers the ability to view two angles at once, so they can see and choose what is being recorded onto the tape.

Diagram 6: Fixed Lab with Switching Device

Sometimes extra equipment necessitates more extra equipment, in order to manage the images going onto the video tape. If the researchers have multiple cameras, for example, or a camera and a scan converter, or any of these options combined, they may need a switching device between the camera/scan converter lines. A switching device allows them to select which of the lines are put through to the VCR (or other device) and which are not. This lab has a 4-line switch device, which is capable of redirecting up to four input line to four output lines. The lab has three possible inputs: Camera 1, Camera 2, and the Scan Converter. Two of these inputs are put through the digital mixer to be combined; the choice is the researcher's. The resulting output is sent to the switch device, along with the third input line. These lines are directed to the two PC-VC cards, which lay timecode on the signal and record to the two VCRs. Thus, the researchers get two tapes out of this lab, which show two camera angles and the action on the computer screen.