EEVblog 1638 - NEW Keysight Megazoom V ASIC 1GHz HD3 Oscilloscope

[EEVblog]

After 13 YEARS Keysight have finally released a new Megazoom V ASIC oscilloscope! Let's look at the HD3 / HD300 series released today.
NOTE: I only had this scope for 24 hours from when it arrived to when I rleased this video, so please excuse the curidity of the video, I didn't have time to build it to scale or to paint it.

00:00 - NEW Keysight MD304MSO 14bit ADC Oscilloscope with Megazoom V ASIC!
08:19 - Boot up
10:24 - New User Interface
14:12 - A few bugs
15:40 - 100MHz Signal Gen
16:28 - USB & Quick Action
18:13 - Intensity Graded Display DOWNGRADE?
19:30 - Ethernet remote and VNC
21:01 - Screen Scaling?
22:59 - Measurements
23:44 - Coming soon... X-Y & Roll
24:52 - 100uV/DIV ?
25:38 - Measurement on full data or screen?
27:34 - Trigger level range limitation, another coming soom feature
28:02 - Comparison to R&S MXO4, Half the noise, and 14bit vs 12bit
29:57 - Update rate comparison
30:44 - Noise measurement at 1V/DIV
31:17 - Custom ADC speculation
31:55 - BRUTAL Update rate comparison, Megazoom Magic
35:13 - Lack of bandwidth filters, maybe another coming soon option...
36:53 - 16 HD mode vs 18bit HD
37:10 - 14bit ADC TESTED
38:14 - Window docking & Tiling & Full Screen
39:08 - Zone triggering
40:31 - Serial decode
41:43 - NEW FEATURE: Fault Hunter
45:50 - 1GHz Passive Probe!
46:43 - Conclusion

[EEVblog]

Please use the existing thread here for comments on the scope:
https://www.eevblog.com/forum/testgear/new-keysight-infiniivision-hd3-oscilloscope/

Only post here if it's about my video specifically, thanks.

[hans]

I don't have technically a lot to comment on this model of scope, except that I think the industrial design department is a bit lacking. We can rage about the spaceship look of some asian brands (looking at you Rigol), but this scope looks like it just transitioned from CRT vintage to new fancy LCDs, but to accommodate them they needed huge borders/frames  around the screen.
It almost looks like they were aiming to have a larger diagonal screen but it didn't work out, so they stuck in the inner black frame to fill the big gap in the enclosure.

Just look at what the most modern models of Rohde&Schwarz (MXO 4), Tektronix (MSO 24), or heck even Siglent (e.g. SDS2104X) are doing with their front panel design. So much sexier!

But these scopes were always meant to be workhorses, not lookers. So if it delivers in that department I guess we can forgive it.

[SWB]

Thank you very much for getting this video out so quickly! I think you were probably one of the last YouTubers to receive yours, and yet as far as I can tell, you're the second one to get a video out. Lots of detail for such a quick turnaround, as well.

[Bloch]

Before you look at this video and think you need it, remember it costs the same as a new car!

[NE666]

Before you look at this video and think you need it, remember it costs the same as a new car!

Which is why I find it rather odd that Keysight has clearly decided to push for air time and "bench visibility" for this with content creators who primarily/significantly attract an amateur/hobbyist audience. Particularly incongruent, I feel, given how Agilent/Keysight made a strategic decision to leave that market demographic behind. It feels to me as if someone in marketing thought they'd seen enough Rigol, Siglent et al logos and wanted in, or rather, the others out of sight. Again, despite those brands being a much better fit for the largest proportion of viewers.

Note, very clearly please, that I don't consider that this necessarily applies to the EEVBlog channel, although I'd be surprised if a very large percentage of regular viewers weren't from outside of the EE industry. With all due respect, I think some other channels currently reviewing the HD3 will be almost exclusively frequented by interested amateurs of all ranges of ability, e.g. IMSAI Guy and Electroboom.

And no, I don't think that's a derogatory statement. Quite the opposite. It's one thing to be recognised as a subject matter expert amongst colleagues and peers, it's another again to also be a highly valued and widely respected public educator in that same area. And creators of such high value material earn and deserve their rewards and sponsorships.

[SWB]

Which is why I find it rather odd that Keysight has clearly decided to push for air time and "bench visibility" for this with content creators who primarily/significantly attract an amateur/hobbyist audience.

Agreed. Some of them that have popped up so far are real head-scratchers. No disrespect at all to the content creators – they have a different audience, and it's not their fault Keysight decided to send them an expensive scope. Anyone with even a passing interest in electronics would be thrilled to have something like this show up on their doorstep for free.

But what does Keysight hope to get out of it? The pros largely aren't watching those channels; the hobbyists that are can't afford the scope; and (crucially) the content creator may not have the background to provide useful or interesting insight or commentary about it.

I really hope they sent @Shahriar one. His and Dave's videos tend to be the best for this sort of thing.

I also reject the premise that because something is out of reach (for a particular person), there's no point in paying attention to it. I'm not an RF guy, and I could never in a million years afford most of the stuff Shahriar discusses on his channel, but I still enjoy watching it and find it incredibly interesting and educational.

[NE666]

The pros largely aren't watching those channels; the hobbyists that are can't afford the scope; and (crucially) the content creator may not have the background to provide useful or interesting insight or commentary about it.

I wouldn't go so far as to say that channels like Dave's don't attract professional viewers but Keysight's marketing will already have other avenues of advancement when it comes to making contact and getting eyeballs on there , including industry trade shows and account reps with offers of free samples (for the largest customers) and test-drives. And you're dead right on the last two.

Hence, what's happened this week indeed seems a bit "dog in a manger" on Keysight's part, attempting to take out focus from the only brands that would be accessible to the lion's share of the regularly viewing audiences.

[SWB]

I wouldn't go so far as to say that channels like Dave's don't attract professional viewers

Dave's channel (and surely Shahriar's as well) definitely does attract professional viewers. I was referring to a couple of the other channels I've seen pop up thus far with HD3 videos.

[EEVblog]

Thank you very much for getting this video out so quickly! I think you were probably one of the last YouTubers to receive yours, and yet as far as I can tell, you're the second one to get a video out. Lots of detail for such a quick turnaround, as well.

I have no idea who else has one. But I'd be surprised if they didn't send one to The Signal Path as well.
I know that several Youtubers have done paid promo hype videos or sponsor segments in the last week or two though.
BTW, Keysight didn't ask me to do that because they know I don't do paid sonsorships or promo's.

[EEVblog]

The pros largely aren't watching those channels; the hobbyists that are can't afford the scope; and (crucially) the content creator may not have the background to provide useful or interesting insight or commentary about it.

I wouldn't go so far as to say that channels like Dave's don't attract professional viewers

Majority of my audience are professional engineers, and the next biggest segment is engineering students. Hobbyists is the smallest of the three. I do surveys to get this data so it's not a guess.

[EEVblog]

This short just showed up in my feed:
https://www.youtube.com/shorts/lC0r0kJUWFo
Didn't know about this channel, but he just did a review:

[EEVblog]

Electronoobs is another one:


And Mehdi has done a promo, but I don't think he usually reviews products does he?

https://www.youtube.com/shorts/822II6b7UR8

[SWB]

This short just showed up in my feed:

I haven't watched his video yet, but he's one of the ones I was referring to. Full respect for the guy, I mean no insult or ill-will whatsoever, but the fact that his video description starts off by saying, "I do apologize for my lack of expertise on the subject of oscilloscopes but I had a good time messing around with it," makes me wonder why Keysight thought his channel would be a good fit for this instrument.

Also he's had it a while (he did a cute series of shorts over the past week or so), but you got your video out before he did.

[EEVblog]

I haven't watched his video yet, but he's one of the ones I was referring to. Full respect for the guy, I mean no insult or ill-will whatsoever, but the fact that his video description starts off by saying, "I do apologize for my lack of expertise on the subject of oscilloscopes but I had a good time messing around with it," makes me wonder why Keysight thought his channel would be a good fit for this instrument.

Basic blanket brand marketing for a new product release. And very often it just comes down to someone at the company being a fan of a particular channel.

[Ranayna]

Do you know if your scope is a pre-production model?
I have to admit: i am a bit surprised about the amount of firmware issues there apparently are.

I know that getting a finished piece of equipment is not expected anymore if you buy something brand new. But this scope seems to have some extremely glaring issues, and a lot of them.

[EEVblog]

Do you know if your scope is a pre-production model?
I have to admit: i am a bit surprised about the amount of firmware issues there apparently are.
I know that getting a finished piece of equipment is not expected anymore if you buy something brand new. But this scope seems to have some extremely glaring issues, and a lot of them.

Hardware wise I don't know. But hardware wouldn't play a part in any firmware issues.
I know what's coming in the next 5 firmware releases, so they have some sort of rolling system for firmware releases, and that seems to include any models like mine that get released into the wild.
So they could have given my a firmware that was 5 releases ahead of the one I got, but I decided not to, I guess so there is no chance the files are made public before testing.

[ballsystemlord]

Thanks Dave, I look forward to the teardown.

[Kleinstein]

Most of the issues look like either hard limitations of the hardware (limited number of points to download from normal screen data) or software things.
The blue LED that is a bit dim would be the exception, that may get a minor hardware update.
I would not complain so much about the trigger input at the back. With 4 channels one does no need the external trigger that often. It is more like a positive surprise to have an external trigger with 4 channels.

It is kind of normal to have not yet all FW features and few bugs left for a kind of preview unit. As long as such issues get fixed, this could be the price to pay for an early release.

[electr_peter]

At 14:12 vertical offset actually works very fast (look at the range on the right and channel offset on top left). Some auto-scaling (shifting vertical range) is in action, so that channel position on vertical axis does not change much (scale changed from [-20V, 0V, 20V] to [-15V, 0V, 25V]). Maybe it has something to do with channel DC offset control in analog path

Try that with real DC offset AC signal, it will be more obvious than with open input.

[ejeffrey]

This short just showed up in my feed:

I haven't watched his video yet, but he's one of the ones I was referring to. Full respect for the guy, I mean no insult or ill-will whatsoever, but the fact that his video description starts off by saying, "I do apologize for my lack of expertise on the subject of oscilloscopes but I had a good time messing around with it," makes me wonder why Keysight thought his channel would be a good fit for this instrument.

There isn't much downside.  It probably doesn't cost them a lot, improves overall brand awareness (including for their other products) and may reach a few actually  interested people.  It's not like these videos are likely to turn customers away.

It also probably helps with the YouTube algorithm. For one, if you watch the EEVBlog video on this scope, YouTube is likely to recommend to you a bunch of other videos on the scope.  Whether you watch them or not, they hope that creates a larger impression of "everyone is taking about the new key sight megazoom V".  By the same token, if a bunch of popular hobbyist channels have good videos on this scope that get a lot of views, it may end up promoting Dave's video to more professional engineers.

[ballsystemlord]

@Dave , I just thought about this, but doesn't the HD3's reading it's own trigger invalidate the WFM/s test?

Like, if the scope is in it's "dead time" it's neither reading the trigger pulse nor outputting it. Therefore, according to the scope, it's trigger rate is always 1M+ WFM/s.

Maybe I'm not understanding something?

Thanks!

[EEVblog]

@Dave , I just thought about this, but doesn't the HD3's reading it's own trigger invalidate the WFM/s test?
Like, if the scope is in it's "dead time" it's neither reading the trigger pulse nor outputting it. Therefore, according to the scope, it's trigger rate is always 1M+ WFM/s.
Maybe I'm not understanding something?

I used the frequency counter function, not triggerign from it's own trigger output.

[thm_w]

There isn't much downside.  It probably doesn't cost them a lot, improves overall brand awareness (including for their other products) and may reach a few actually  interested people.  It's not like these videos are likely to turn customers away.

It also probably helps with the YouTube algorithm. For one, if you watch the EEVBlog video on this scope, YouTube is likely to recommend to you a bunch of other videos on the scope.  Whether you watch them or not, they hope that creates a larger impression of "everyone is taking about the new key sight megazoom V".  By the same token, if a bunch of popular hobbyist channels have good videos on this scope that get a lot of views, it may end up promoting Dave's video to more professional engineers.

Its true its just funny. Great Scott has one now too, sponsored in his video about sub $2 arduino boards.

Straight out of the playbook of recent Chinese companies. They'll send products to any channel, even if its completely unrelated to their target market.

https://youtu.be/AsQ8I53SKPc?t=73

[EEVblog]

Its true its just funny. Great Scott has one now too, sponsored in his video about sub $2 arduino boards.
Straight out of the playbook of recent Chinese companies. They'll send products to any channel, even if its completely unrelated to their target market.

In the case of Great Scott, that's a paid promotional slot. So he's got to say the company talking points etc as an advertorial.
I doubt he'll do a review on it off his own bat. Looking at his reviews he's only ever done really low cost stuff:
https://www.youtube.com/@greatscottlab/search?query=review