R&S - as a traditional RF company entered Scope market more than 10 years ago, and brought these innovative key new functions into the scope design, 1. Digital trigger. 2. Waveform update rate in Million level. 3. Touch screen focused GUI with aggregate color-coded channels, Tek took some time overhauling its platforms about 5 years ago, now Keysight finally jumped on the bandwagon. the HD3 GUI still has some room to improve, it pretty like an alpha version.
What's the obsession with releasing products with 1/2 completed firmware nowadays? 14 bit resolution and 800 pixels to display it... You love to see it.
The resolution disparity between the ADC and the display is a crime. Worse yet if you tile multiple scope traces. After the overhead of the UI bars, you would be lucky to get 300px of height on vertically-tiled traces, or 500px of width on horizontally-tiled traces.
Extremely impressive capture hardware coupled with a very sad UI. I thought I'd be drooling watching this video but... nope. Thank you for your excellent first look btw!
Great to finally catch content from you Dave . Life has been getting in my way lately.😮 Not as easy as it previously was . Ahhhh😊 the days of my EEV ADDICTION are WELL GONE 😮😫😘
The capabilities of the sampling hardware in the device are amazing, and that's where the good ends for me. Comparing against *Keysight's own track record*, this firmware is not half-baked, it's raw. It's missing too many features, horribly slow, not intuitive, and (in my opinion) doesn't look appealing. I expect this quality of firmware from Rigol. I get that the ASICs print directly to the screen, but 1280*800 is not a competitive resolution for a 10" screen, especially at this price point. The port placement is adequate but underwhelming, and the scaled-down EXR chassis aesthetic gives me EDU34450A vibes. At the end of the day, congratulations to Keysight on making an absolutely stunning acquisition ASIC. I am genuinely impressed. Well done, ASIC team. Unfortunately, the ASIC is the only part of this scope I want to buy.
The hardware is super impressive, as always. But I am very disappointed to see that the UI's performance just seems to be "acceptable". Looks like the UI is running at 20-30 FPS most of the time. A product of this caliber should have enough CPU or GPU hardware to run the UI at 60 FPS 24/7. If $100 burner android phones can do it, a $10k scope should, too. Products like this should be responsive. There was a bunch of times I watched when you tried to do something with the UI and it was a half second behind you.
Hoping it's just pre-release FW kinks. Though even in this state, it looks zippier than the MXO4 I've played with. But yeah, responsiveness is why I love working with the 3000/4000/6000s we have around the office.
Sold while still in development at fully developed price point. I’m mechE, it’s still very impressive to me. Nice work on the video, covered a lot of territory in short order.
@@DavidSchmitt the ASIC doesn't contain an application processor. Even then the rpi5's soc is probably a bad choice for this. There are plenty of Linux socs or they could have used a zynq FPGA which has arm cores that would run something like Linux.
Low noise is achieved because there's more front-end integration than before. There's an individual ASIC PER CHANNEL so there's no switching noise (most scopes use one per 2 channels, hence half the memory when you use two adjacent channels), but this makes it expensive. The HD3 also has a digital trigger which removes a noise path, among other advantages, such as timing, synchronisation and jitter. Zone trigger was standard on the (InfiniiVision/MegaZoomIV) 4000A from 10 years ago, and the 3000T/3000G and 4000G a few years later. It's only been cost extra option on the higher-end Infiniium (PC based) scopes. There is a low-pass filter math function on the current MegaZoom scopes, maybe it's not in this yet or you didn't get to it? That would give the same result as the per-channel bandwidth limit on the R&S box. This looks cheap though. Some quirky bits of the case that don't align, the input recessed goes beyond the screen and into the control area. The LeCroy units, when they went black 15 years ago looked higher quality. This looks like a Siglent or some other Asian brand. Speaking of which, Siglent have just released an 8channel, 12-bit high res low-noise scope which is a fraction of the price. Choices...
They're almost certainly buying LCDs from a company such as LG or AUO. They literally just had to spend $10 more on the part for a 1080p display, and almost all of the compatibility tweaks would have been in software.
@@asm_nop Agreed, its abs-o-lutely a middle finger F.U. to the Engineering team and the Customer when they cheap out like that. Love or hate Steve Jobs, he at least made the customer king when it came to UI and visual interaction. $10K, and I'd expect that small screen to be Q-Dot or OLED 4K with 60/90/120hz refresh. BOM cost would be a fraction of the build cost. Over 20 years now and American companies just won't learn...
For those scopes, I wish they would give then 4K or 5K displays. Given the price it shouldn't be an issue, and even if the internal render resolution is not that high it still leads to things looking sharper and smoother.
With as large as this scope is, it's a bummer that Keysight didn't include a larger screen. The bezel is massive and the plastic around that is massive. They could have probably made the screen an inch or two larger without increasing the footprint of the scope. Bummer! This scope also lacks the modern, sleek design that Tek and R&S have today. When you pulled off the dirty screen protector, I thought this was a previous generation 13 year old scope you pulled out of your lab as a comparison against the new HD3. Nope. That's how dated the industrial design of this scope is.
The gardens of the gods park is so named because it has spiritual significance for the native Americans. It is a very beautiful place and worth the visit.
Yeah. R&S didn't release zone trigger for the MXO4 for a year after release! Rigol didn't add hires mode for a year or something on their high end scope.
It's just true across the tech industry. Everything gets shipped before it's ready to ship. PCB designers are putting "prototype" physically on the PCB to prevent sales people from shipping it to a customer.
yeah, scopes need to move to be pc based, either usb or as pcie boards. these standalone scopes are garbage when it comes to anything other than the actual scope
It’s interesting that we are seeing rolling firmware updates with new product introductions (NPIs) as a way of life now. (For all OEMs) Products are sooo software intensive, making testing particularly challenging. I wonder how many lines of code are represented here?
In general I really don't get why in 2024 Scopes still have a display built in at all, I thought back in the days they did it because there was no way around it.. like a 50Ω antenna output just wouldn't cut it. Nowadays you could have a 40" TV screen with more bandwidth on the DP you'd ever need for all your lab goodness.. and a freaking mouse to control it. Maybe someone can enlighten me. On top of it.. they take away your knobs, who's idea was that.. its like .. ridiculous. Sigh.
I'm not 100% sold on the design yet, but in my opinion at least it looks more like a piece of vintage test equipment and not something stolen from the hospital :D
Yeah, those bots always say the same thing, LOL. I just spotted one that doesn't have an avatar, still a "sexy lady spambot" style banner and info if you check the profile out. Thought it could fly under a radar...
@@EEVblog let's do a Voight-Kampff test, haha! To be honest, I never saw a spambot with any content on the page. They either have characteristic avatars with repeatable features (ass, sexy lady etc.) or impersonate the creator - and they're not one-offs either, you see them a lot. Today I saw a bot with no avatar for the first time, but when I looked at the profile, it was still your usual sexy lady spambot. So, things change. I drop in and whack a few bots every time a video goes public on Fran's channel, so I've got my eyes peeled and can spot the patterns.
That's really what I hate about these companies. Software like Sigrok does all serial and parallel decoding for absolutely free - but in these expensive instruments they charge extra for all these small details. There is absolutely no advanced software engineering which is involved which would rectify these extra fees. Soon they will charge micro-payments for every single update frame. This was one reason why we purchased R&S scopes for a student lab a couple of years ago and not Keysight - for the purchase of 25 scopes R&S simply included all features charging the normal price, while Keysight added all the extra costs making their instruments more than twice more expensive per instrument. So they already know the contents of the next 5 firmware releases? Why? Why not fix these problems first. Sounds like banana-ware - ripens at the customer. Are they lacking software developers?
I have a hard time with all touch based interfaces. I like a multitude of buttons with positive feedback. Or maybe I've spent too much time with old equipment because I'm poor😂
@@swit2732 It does seem like they rushed it to market with all the included firmware mentions that Dave put along the screen. And someone else mentioned it feels like you're drunk using all the new GUI s. There's also a moment where he had like five windows stacked on each other. I am not an engineer by any stretch. I use scopes for automotive use and audio use so this isn't exactly aimed at me. In fact I'm still using a 2465 CT and it's fantastic. I have a couple tektronix tube scopes that I still use on the regular and love them.
@@swit2732honestly on a dso with its menus i prefer touch or even mouse control, just makes more sense for me, on an analog of course knobs all the way (i dont even think you could make an analog scope)
Garden of the gods is a popular tourist attraction in Colorado Springs, its beautiful red rock formations. It’s one of the old HP campuses that’s on that road that’s now owned by Keysight. Honestly if you’re in Colorado Springs it’s definitely worth checking out garden of the gods.
I missed some comments on product segmentation (price vs hardware/software unlocks). Also digital and gen on the back... meh. I like the performance comparison between the RS and the HP, that was a great point.
1) Why release an expensive ($10k > $20k) scope with scores of bugs, over a dozen missing / non-working features and a slew of UI issues? Apparently some of these take a year to "catch up". Very few, if any, potential customers are sitting on $$$ waiting to pounce on a new scope when it comes out. Wouldn't it be shocking if a new high-priced 'scope came out and the Headline on the Ad was: "All features work, there are zero bugs and the UI has been vetted and approved by actual users!" They'd sell like crazy! 2) Looks like all these newer "fancy" scopes specifications are verging on "Click Bait". Any spec will need a complex table specifying exactly under what settings and what conditions apply. Such as: "the BW is only with 1 channel at > 10us time base on inputs 1 or 2 on ranges over 100 mV / div, on a sunny day before 8:00AM..." Pitiful, shame on these guys. While not at quite the "bleeding edge" performance, and having a few issues themselves, Siglent and Rigol seem to be way ahead of these guys at a fraction of the cost.
What I have learned from these videos is that if it says Keysight on it I can't afford it. How many scopes can be in one place before they collapse in together to form a singularity or start breeding on their own to make lots of little scopes. :)
14 bits 1ghz is crazy, especially for that price. The square form factor does make sense, but hell, thats one ugly SOAB... I dont mind a touch interface on a 'scope, but prefer it as 'complimentary' and additional to a normal interface. Some operations are just faster with buttons (ex zooming in and out of a timebase, doing the pinchy zoomy is just annoying).
Dave -- you can take an umbrella and mount it on a mic boom.. and then just set that umbrella behind the camera-- and that will block the glare for anything it's looking at; or at least you should be able to set it up at the right angle to block the glare. Simple solution-- but it's gonna get in the way of course. :).. (Or just hang a sheet from a cheap mobile clothing rack, etc)
You’re completely correct, and I can tell you it’s because of feature creep. In the case of this scope, all the features are controlled via a software GUI and mechanical controls are expensive. So an engineering decision is made to avoid mechanical controls for cost savings. Unfortunately, the end result is you have a highly complex product with features that are far too deep for the limited physical interface provided and the cost and time to engineer the software based GUI is astronomical. UX/UI engineers are certainly no less expensive than the EEs will be for a product like this and I would expect software at this level to take years, not months, to design.
When touch screens didn't exist, we had better user interfaces-not just with scopes, but across all tech products. I think not having a touch screen forced designers to think more carefully about making the UI easier to understand
The UI is quite bad. I'm not even talking about how unresponsive it is, I hope that'll be fixed soon. I'm taking about how the UI looks. In comparison, the R&S's UI looks so much polished and practical.
When our competitor was leaked the specs of our next product they advertised vaporware that was point for point better. This R&D lab leak caused our company to cancel that product release. Lost development cost and the projected revenue. That was in the 90s, and I expect it has gotten worse. So when you see Keysight and others pushing out products that are less then feature complete it is because being first to market can differentiate between a money maker and a money furnace. Test and measurement is a very competitive business.
@@danharold3087 I do not agree with You in this particular case. The reason is, they released successor to KS MSOX3000 after more than 10 Years instead of replacing them like Chinese brands do. Many EE’s are buying KS / RS / Lecroy / Tek, because they are established brands that one can trust, are equipped in feature set and are premium priced for that reason. Considering the investment, it is most likely not rushed decision but rather informed and researched one. In that case releasing bug- full product, that feature set will be expanded later, is not trustworthy or promising for future buyers. Polishing firmware is not something that company like Keysight can’t do in month or two. Is there any competitor to HD3 that will be released in this year?
@@danharold3087 I do not agree with You in this particular case. The reason is, they released successor to KS MSOX3000 after more than 10 Years instead of replacing them like Chinese brands do. Many EE’s are buying KS / RS / Lecroy / Tek, because they are establish brand that one can trust, are equipped in feature set and are premium priced for that reason. Considering the investment, it is most likely not rushed decision but rather informed and researched one. In that case releasing bug- full product, that feature set will be expanded later, is not trustworthy or promising for future buyers. Polishing firmware is not something that company like Keysight can’t do in month or two. Is there any competitor to HD3 that will be released in this year?
@@danharold3087 I do not agree with You in this particular case. The reason is, they released successor to KS MSOX3000 after more than 10 Years instead of replacing them like Chinese brands do. Many EE’s are buying KS / RS / Lecroy / Tek, because they are establish brand that one can trust, are equipped in feature set and are premium priced for that reason. Considering the investment, it is most likely not rushed decision but rather informed and researched one. In that case releasing bug- full product, that feature set will be expanded later, is not trustworthy or promising for future buyers. Polishing firmware is not something that company like Keysight can’t do in month or two. Is there any competitor to HD3 that will be released in this year?
I love this channel, however disappointed that Dave has such weird standards. Lower-end products with some of these issues would be called out as beta-rubbish. But big daddy KS or others who want $10K for a product with so many issues and most of the numerous issues are hand-waved away as 'will likely be fixed, or even implemented at a later date'.... I love when you call out the stupids and grifters like the solar roadways folks, and all the other scammers. But hate it when you turn a blind eye to folks like KS and others when they poop the bed on their $1/2/10,000 product. I understand you might have a problem with your KS contact if you gave as equally an honest review with their products as you do some others. Viewers with $$ in their pocket should keep that in mind when they watch any social media/influencers.
The update rate seems depends on trigger. in case if MXO4 captures more data than HD3 in a single trigger, the update rate should be slower. For FFT update rate, using free running rather than using trigger may be more suitable for seeing the update rate.
For some comparison with a cheap(er) scope: The Rigol MSO5000 is advertised at 500k wfm/s. I got it to 300k without trying too hard on a test waveform. Enabling zone trigger dropped it to 70k. Obviously still nowhere near what this keysight can do in that regard (plus its a 350MHz 8-bit scope anyway! Way behind the state of the art). But this is Rigol's first-gen ASIC if I rember correctly. Not too shabby for a 5+ year old design. It really shows that R&S didnt just drop the ball, they slammed it into the ground as hard as they could.
One feature that seems very important for professional use (or my nerdy amateur use) is programmability. I rarely see it being discussed. And it looks like it's often very much locked down.
Decades and decades of horrible UI’s on most of the world’s devices, “powered by” (unempowered by) Windows CE and Windows Mobile and Windows Windows and crappy Java and garbage Android (Java), there’s a reason GE is getting punched in the face for taking away Apple Carplay from their new vehicles. Terrible to see this new Keysight thing, hire some former Apple people, put Linux on it, put a proper touchscreen on it, put a proper UI on it, get rid of those 1 inch bezels on the display it’s 2024, put a proper CPU (or 2, or 10) on these things, you can afford it when you charge $10k and $100k for these things for F sake.
The sluggish user interface is a bit of a disappointment. The processor handling the user interface shall do nothing else than handle the user interface. (acceptable for it to perhaps handle the network as well, but UI responsiveness is important. Having a scope that bogs down to a crawl just because one does some math/FFT is frankly unacceptable.) The whole user interface seems a bit unpolished in general. Not atrocious, but compared to others it is lacking. Having a trig in or arb out on the front, would have been nice. There is ample amounts of space for both on that front panel. (I personally don't care about it being a little cluttered, I want my creature comforts above "sleek" needlessly symmetric design.) Email on trigger is however an interesting feature. I guess people triggering on these sorts of rare events can now leave their SBC at home. (hopefully it can run for days waiting for that trigger, and send along the captured data with the email, if not I am disappointed.) The sig gen seems like a joke. Honestly. Give me an arb, or leave it out of the scope. (I still want to "effortlessly" select a portion of a captured waveform and simply toss that out the sig gen as people have dreamed off ever since the first scope with a sig gen appeared on the market. Adding this ability to further complicate things with a math channel would be even better, and it would be even better to do it live, but that is likely asking for too much, even if a live DSP would be wonderful at times and then a second sig gen channel or three would be marvelous at times.) Intensity grating is yet again a fail. Scope manufacturers in general don't know what transparency is, expect the older scope does it correctly.... (question is if it can correctly overlap two channels.) Having the scope not capture what is promised due to "prioritizing capture speed" is frankly false advertising. If it only applies to single shot triggers, then it should be clearly labeled so that the user knows. Weird "inconsistent" behavior like this is frankly infuriating and makes one question one's tools, and that isn't good. In the end, I am critical since there is major room for improvement.
Does anyone know how they justify advertising 14 bits when the noise floor is only ~2^9 smaller than fullscale? Seems a bit silly to me to have so many extra bits just for digitizing the noise floor. I thought you only needed a couple of extra bits to get some dither.
I'm surprised that this version does not have the innovation of a credit card reader in the empty area below the screen. With all the SaaS 'features' on scopes these days, how long will it be before they start charging per waveform. I think I will stick with my 20yo scope that has no idea what the internet is ; )
In the future, in the next firmware, it's a bug that will be fixed later...yeah. To me it seems like KS had problems with meeting their deadlines. Besides, this scope looks like it was designed by the team of the worst industrial designers from Rigol and Siglent.
The FFT comparison seems not so correct as the RBW using in the two oscilloscope are not the same. HD3 seems using 24KHz RBW, but MXO4 is using 100K Hz RBW. So, the noise floor in the FFT will be 6 dB larger. The speed may also be affected.
it feels like with move to touch every action got slower and less convenient. And every action looks like it has lag. Looks laggier than my entry level sigilent too. Also why on earth you'd release ASIC now that can't handle even fullhd? Kinda weird architecture, I'd assume it would just render the image to a GPU memory, then GPU can put it anywhere it needs to
🚫 I don't want to ruffle anyone's panties.. but without the "carrying bag" (being included) I would have to consider this new HD3 to be "Dingo Dung". I believe KeySight™ has lost Sight of what is Key. Just saying Thank you for the video
What's the point of direct to screen updates at a million plus updates per second when the display tech can't possibly keep up with that even in the slightest let alone the human eye. I think it's really direct to memory and Then to display at a far far far slower speed. For 13 years having passed it sure doesn't look all that impressive. Point being with the direct to memory and then to screen is they should have been able to scale it.
