New 2GHz touchscreen scope from Tek, June 6th

[EEVblog]

I wanted to give advice to Dave to be more polite, but I know the answer in advance ("my forum -- my rules, I do whatever I want and if you are disagree go duck yourself").

If the thing is any good then why would Dave complain about it?

Since when has it become a crime to point out things that I notice? And to ask questions and have an opinion?
Yes I could gush on about all the wonderful things for hours, but am I obligated to do that? No I am not, but I have given credit were credit is due.
The great things about this scope are plainly obvious, I shouldn't have to harp on about them.
I think there is more value in pointing out things that aren't right, or are lacking, or weren't as expected, or if there are practical issues etc, I always play devils advocate. In case some people have forgotten, that's what I do.
Yet I now seem to be branded some sort of Tek hater who just wants to hate on this scope, 

Why have I harped on about a couple of "negative" things about this scope? Probably because the marketing and hype rubbed me the wrong way, I don't like being rubbed the wrong way. Is it Tek's fault that it didn't quite match what I expected? No, of course not, it just didn't quite match what I expected. And there are couple of plainly poor decisions that went into this, so I pointed them out.
Seriously, if Tek wanted to make this a "game changer" for Jill Engineer then they should at least throw in digital probes for free. (You watch, they will once they reailse it's not getting the uptake they expect, just like the MDO), probably ditch the 4CH version, or at least make it much cheaper or something, or include other options for a better "entry level" system. Perhaps they will in a year's time with a smaller lower bandwidth model?

I think they have a huge opportunity here with say a low-ish to mid range 500MHz max model (1GHz is all but useless without expensive active probes) using the new 6GS/s ASIC (the 10 times bandwith is ideal), 4 channels only, existing external 16CH digital probes (if possible architecturally), and a smaller screen that's still HD. They'd own the 500MHz scope market. i.e. an R&S RTB2004 killer. That's kinda what I was hoping for with a new Tek scope. Ok, not price matched with the RTB because of the 12bit converter etc, but you know, in the ballpark.
As it stands, whilst it being an awesome scope, I don't really see the 5 Series being the go-to choice for a general lab MSO for those on reasonable budgets (sub $20k). Same for Lecroy of course.
It's more of >$20k signal analysis scope, and would probably be the pick above that price range for general use.
For specific high channel count (be honest, 64 digital and zero analog is fairy land) and really detailed signal analysis on screen (performance nit-picks aside), I think the Lecroy probably has it beat.

[EEVblog]

If the thing is any good then why would Dave complain about it?

That's exactly my point. To be clear: I think Dave likes to complain. Because he is Dave, not because the product is bad.

I play a good devils advocate. I like to think I've made my reputation doing that?
And yeah, I like a good whinge.
Of course the product is not bad, it's a kick arse scope, I could gush on about all the great stuff for hours.

[Omicron]

Yes, this leads to amusing things like frequency readings based on waveform features that have been resampled into invisibility for display purposes.  This type of phenomenon is basically where the truth of nctnico's signature line comes from.

I'm not saying you should switch off your common sense when doing these measurements The entire point I was making is that you need to understand how your scope is doing things. These scopes offer many features that can influence the way they measure, like gating the measurement or specifying reference levels. The old adage that you should know the approximate result of whatever you are measuring before you start still applies.

[w2aew]

Someone had asked to see a screen capture of the scope to really see the high resolution of the display, since the pictures and videos shared thus far haven't really shown this.  Here's a quick screencap.  You may have to download it to view it in it's full 1920x1080 resolution:

[EEVblog]

Someone had asked to see a screen capture of the scope to really see the high resolution of the display, since the pictures and videos shared thus far haven't really shown this.  Here's a quick screencap.  You may have to download it to view it in it's full 1920x1080 resolution:

Thanks Alan.
Can you do a standard 100% modulated AM wave at various memory depths to show the intensity grading?

[mikeselectricstuff]

Also, I'm surprised that more people are not talking about the dual boot feature. Being able to write your own code / analysis stuff to run on the scope sounds like a very powerful feature.

I'm not quite sure what this means. I don't think they give away any sources. But if they make specs available so that anyone could write a _complete_ equivalent of their firmware then it's a breakthrough. Hope other vendors will follow the example. Especially Asian guys who tend to have very crappy firmware and poor short-term support.

From what I can deduce from info seen so far, it looks like  the scope application can run under Windows or their OS.
my guess is any connectivity will be either direct access from third-party Windows apps to files saved by the scope filesystem, and/or some sort of communications API, maybe something like an internal LXI network connection.
 
Could also be that the scope runs on a virtual screen that's hardware overlaid into a window.

[HighVoltage]

Someone had asked to see a screen capture of the scope to really see the high resolution of the display, since the pictures and videos shared thus far haven't really shown this.  Here's a quick screencap.  You may have to download it to view it in it's full 1920x1080 resolution:

Thank you !
Ok, resizing this to the original scope size gives me a good impression of how it must be to sit in front of it.
Very impressive !

Can you make screen shots with a single button to a USB drive ?
 

[Dubbie]

that really is a beautiful screen w2aew.

Makes me jealous!

[EEVblog]

More thoughts, because, you know, I cannot help myself, and as always I like to think I have a viewpoint to add.

Like I said before, price point is everything.

Make no mistake, hardly anyone on here would be talking about this new scope if it wasn't for the marketing and hype, and for many (including me) the expectation that might have been at a lower price point.
If not for the marketing, the response would simply be "Oh look, awesome, Tek is still in the game with another high end scope. It's cool. The end."

Why? Because it's at the $20k+ price point for anything really practical. Price point is everything when it comes to general interest.
This simply puts it into the "great high end specialised tool" a.k.a "don't care for all practical purposes" basket for most engineers looking for a scope on any sort of reasonable corporate budget.

Can you imagine if Lecroy did the same hype about a"game changing" scope three years ago with the HDO8000, videoing average engineers going "wow! this is going to change everything" as it's revealed to them? We would have rolled our eyes and moved on. But because it's Tek doing (to a fair margin) the same thing, it's going to change the industry and everyone should think this is the new scope everyone will have? Come on, let's be realistic.
Lecroys hype was simply this:
http://teledynelecroy.com/pressreleases/document.aspx?news_id=1847

This is why I failed to get excited about it, it's just not a good value general scope. Don't get me wrong, it's not "expensive" for what it is, it might indeed be very good value, even "ground breaking" for the market segment that it's in compared to it's competition, but that's a different thing entirely.
And don't get me wrong again, I get excited about high end gear the same way anyone else does, but it's a different kind of excitement to something I see that's down at the practical everyday engineer level I find more interesting. I just get more excited talking about stuff at lower levels.

The MSO54 might be just about at that the price level I might get excited to talk about, but like I've said, and no one has bothered to dispute it, the 4 channel MSO is a poor value proposition.

So if you are wondering why I'm not glowing about this scope when you know damn well that I should be because of some cool stuff it offers, now you know.
And I don't think I'm alone, look at how many threads there are about any other high end $20k+ bit of gear, practically none. Price makes a difference and can put things into different categories.

[snoopy]

More thoughts, because, you know, I cannot help myself, and as always I like to think I have a viewpoint to add.

Like I said before, price is everything.

Sorry Dave I have to disagree that price is everything !! I bought a Rigol DS1054Z to do serial decode because it was cheap and everyone else was banging on about how good it was including yourself. But it was not until I used it myself in situ that I soon came up against some serious limitations and whilst it could decode a screens worth of serial data it was pretty much useless for lots of data that couldn't fit on the screen. In fact in the end I had to intuitively guess what the problem was with the circuit so the scope was pretty much useless for this real world situation. Yes bang for the buck the Rigol is great value but will bang for the buck help you diagnose a problem ? No not necessarily. It is false economy to assume so. To avoid this situation I ended up purchasing a Kingst USB logic analyser with 500Ms/s sample rate and 5G sample depth so hopefully I am better prepared for this scenario the next time.

Same issue with a 200MHz Hantek scope trying to measure SDRAM timing with a 100MHz clock. With passive probe loading and inadequate bandwidth everything looks like distorted sinewaves and its almost impossible to evaluate. So no, price is not everything when it comes to test equipment. In the end I had to get an older Tek scope from the 90's with active probes. So what happens is you buy this cheap stuff thinking that you are getting a great deal and then having to spend more again because it can't do what you thought it could do

cheers

[GlowingGhoul]

Well, let's hope the developments behind this enterprise price level scope trickle down to sub $5000 range units.

[EEVblog]

Well, let's hope the developments behind this enterprise price level scope trickle down to sub $5000 range units.

I can't see why it's not possible.
I don't know how much the system ASIC costs, and perhaps if the architecture suits you could even share one system ASIC between two channels like many other scopes?
Although like I said before, one per channel would put the fire up the competitions butt.
If the new ADC ASIC (I'm assuming they are two different chips) is affordable then it could be reused (12 bit would be killer), or simply reuse existing 300/500MHz front and end and ADC from existing designs.
You certainly wouldn't want to build the 1GHz front end into a mid range scope.
And ditch the Flex channel, it's not politically compatible with a lower cost scope.
Just the act of lowing the bandwidth, limiting to 4 channel, reusing existing ASIC's, maybe using a smaller screen would go down very well.
Keysight eventually put their Megazoom IV into a $400 scope.

[EEVblog]

One thing no one has mentioned is bandwidth upgradeability, is it possible?
I see no software bandwidth options.
IIRCthey have said there are different boards to the 2GHz version vs 1GHz, but I'm going to assume that the 350MHz unit has the 1GHz hardware in it?
At the very least I'm certain the 500MHz and 350MHz are the same hardware.
If it is in it and they are not offering software upgrades, then that's a mistake.

[w2aew]

One thing no one has mentioned is bandwidth upgradeability, is it possible?
I see no software bandwidth options.
IIRCthey have said there are different boards to the 2GHz version vs 1GHz, but I'm going to assume that the 350MHz unit has the 1GHz hardware in it?
At the very least I'm certain the 500MHz and 350MHz are the same hardware.
If it is in it and they are not offering software upgrades, then that's a mistake.

Everything except channel count is upgradable.  Bandwidth upgradable in the field up to 1GHz. Upgrades to 2GHz require a trip to a service center.

[tautech]

One thing no one has mentioned is bandwidth upgradeability, is it possible?

IIRC Sharahir did in his first look vid.
As Alan says up to 1 GHz then some new guts for 2 GHz

[EEVblog]

One thing no one has mentioned is bandwidth upgradeability, is it possible?
I see no software bandwidth options.
IIRCthey have said there are different boards to the 2GHz version vs 1GHz, but I'm going to assume that the 350MHz unit has the 1GHz hardware in it?
At the very least I'm certain the 500MHz and 350MHz are the same hardware.
If it is in it and they are not offering software upgrades, then that's a mistake.

Everything except channel count is upgradable.  Bandwidth upgradable in the field up to 1GHz. Upgrades to 2GHz require a trip to a service center.

Ok, thanks. No prices on those options at Testequity.

[bson]

The "extra" captured data is not offscreen somewhere, it is in between the pixels you see on your screen.

It's not even "between the pixels", rather it has been decimated to an intensity graded vertical bar that represents the acquisition record for a particular one-pixel horizontal time interval.

[mtdoc]

Well, let's hope the developments behind this enterprise price level scope trickle down to sub $5000 range units.

Though not specific to this new high end Tek scope, my bet is that larger, touch screens will become the new norm even for the < $5k mid-range and eventually even entry level scopes. That will probably also mean fewer knobs and with the LED light coded vertical knob or some variation.

I'll be surprised if the next mid level scope from Rigol doesn't follow that trend and I'll bet the next update to Tek and Keysight's mid level scopes will have those features as well.

[mikeselectricstuff]

I don't see larger screens becoming common as they make the unit too big, taking up excessive bench space.

[EEVblog]

I don't see larger screens becoming common as they make the unit too big, taking up excessive bench space.

Same here. But higher res would be nice on MSO's, assuming they keep font sizes adequate.

[modrobert]

Can you do a standard 100% modulated AM wave at various memory depths to show the intensity grading?

Yes, I would like to see this as well.

[mtdoc]

I don't see larger screens becoming common as they make the unit too big, taking up excessive bench space.

Well larger is a relative term. I mean larger than the current smallish, non-touch screens found on the low and mid range scopes made by all the major manufacturers with the exception of R&S and Micsig.

[JoHr]

The idea of have analog channels parallel used with the logic probes is not really new.
As i imagine Hameg/R&S has done this several years ago and is still doing this on their scopes.

The 4-channel HMO shared 2 logic probes with channel 3&4 for reasons of memory.
+HMO/-Tek:    All probes can be plugged parallel the same time. No changing of probes neccessary.
                       Tek can only use one probe the same time.

-HMO/+Tek:    You have to switch manually between them. Tek detects automatically which one is plugged.

https://www.rohde-schwarz.com/us/product/hmo3000-products_63492-42344.html

[Fungus]

If the thing is any good then why would Dave complain about it?

That's exactly my point. To be clear: I think Dave likes to complain. Because he is Dave, not because the product is bad.

I play a good devils advocate. I like to think I've made my reputation doing that?
And yeah, I like a good whinge.

What's the point in doing a review if you don't have an opinion at the end of it?

Most people can read the sales brochure just fine. The missing information is what the sales brochures don't tell you. That's what reviews are for, that's what they should focus on.

It's not just whining, it can mention things that impress, too. You can't put look/feel/smell in a brochure, if something smells extra good, Dave usually says so.

[Fungus]

I don't see larger screens becoming common as they make the unit too big, taking up excessive bench space.

Phones have full HD in 6" or less. iPhones have 2048 pixels across.

An 8" high-def touchscreen on a 'scope wouldn't make it any more bulky than existing devices. It might even make it cheaper to produce if they can remove knobs/buttons/PCB.