Technical Issues in Recording Nonverbal Behavior

As technology advances, the trend is always to increase the quality of recording and decrease the cost and size of equipment. The purpose of this chapter is to provide information on the best methods of securing and maintaining audiovisual data. This allows researchers the opportunity to consider the technical methods most appropriate for collecting data to answer their research questions. This presents interesting challenges to researchers, as sometimes it may make sense to hold off on a project for a few months so one can obtain a better piece of equipment at a lower cost. Fortunately, there is now affordable equipment that is of such high quality that one can do any sort of nonverbal research with it. The researcher should keep in mind that the quality of research will be based foremost on the quality of the ideas and its execution, and no technological bell or whistle can overcome a bad design.