Stick with ethovision requirement, they are universal and good resolution (not lesser than 480p) with high contrast and not less than 25 FPS, .AVI /MP4 any format is fine. With something like JWatcher, whichever you can play on your computer the same can be used with JWatcher. 

Try any tracking software (like ehovision) with any observational software (like JWatcher

Hope this is helpful.

I'm not an expert of video encoding, but we use Ethovision and in my experience, file format is an important issue. I do not recommend AVI format, because Ethovision processes .avi files slower than e.g. MPEG-2 or MPEG-4 format. It is particularly important when using Track Editor feature. Our computer is optimized for Ethovision (purchased with the tracking system), but in Track Editor, AVI videos regularly freeze and stall. This problem was not observed when we used MPEG-2 format. So, we used MPEG-2 .mpg files with HD resolution (1920x1080), but lower resolution is also suitable. I think, frame rate was 25 fps. These videos worked quite good.

Otherwise, Ethovision itself records videos in .mpg files with H.264 or MPEG-4 coding (depending on the frame grabber card), with 25 or 29,97 fps. Resolution can be set by the experimenter, I think we have set to 720x576. Videos converted with these parameters should probably work. Also the Reference Manual Appendix B contains a lot of useful information about file formats.

Thanks both - I think they are currently mpeg-2, and the journal suggested conversion to mpeg-4... which I was aware could be problematic in Ethovision!

My goal is to make the video files available for analysis by others, and I would  encourage analysis using something other than Ethovision, which is why I want to have wide compatibility.

Kapil - am I correct in understanding that file format is not a factor for JWatcher as it is obervational?

Yes, JWatcher is a key logger program in its root, it works separately from your video. You play your video using VLC (for example) and switch to JWatcher window and start pressing the key pre programmed for particular behaviour that you want to measure in the video getting played in parallel. 

I use TopScan (from Cleversys, inc.).  It can handle a multitude of formats.  However, I have found that when conversion is necessary (ex: Mac vs. PC for other viewing needs), VLC is an excellent converter.  Others in my lab also use VLC for their needs.

Great - sounds like I don't need to worry too much about the format as long as the quality is good. 

Thanks all for the feedback!

ethovision is very good software but we use panlab harvard apparatuse and it's very simple to use. don't worry about the video formats because you can converte all formats to each other by converter softwares without loosing quality.