Aspect ratio of oscilloscope displays - Page 1
Forum section: electronics / projects

author: Renate
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: July 06, 2020, 05:44:27 pm
content: In ye (really) olde days, oscilloscopes had round CRTs.Then they got a bit squarer, then a bit rectangularer.A lot of LCD display scopes today seem to be 4:3 or so.That might be a good aspect ratio for eye diagrams or sine waves.Still, if you're looking at some sort of data stream, I'd prefer something wider.So, what do you think? Do you care? Would you want a scope with a wider display?Does anybody try to sell a scope with the display as wide as the (landscape style) chassis?

author: Benta
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: July 06, 2020, 05:58:40 pm
content: In that case, use a USB scope and let your PC do the rendering.

author: capt bullshot
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: July 06, 2020, 06:04:04 pm
content: Quote from: Renate on July 06, 2020, 05:44:27 pmTodays scopes follow the trend of more or less cheaply available display sizes. So one can expect a new scope to have a 16:10 or 16:9 screen today anyway. Smartphone displays may be wider, but a scope manufacturer wouldn't use them because they're usually as quickly phased out as they appear due to rapid model changes.

author: Renate
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: July 06, 2020, 06:09:29 pm
content: Quote from: Benta on July 06, 2020, 05:58:40 pmIn point of fact, that's what I do, using custom software.

author: Matje
author_rank: Regular Contributor
timestamp: July 06, 2020, 06:47:03 pm
content: Quote from: Renate on July 06, 2020, 05:44:27 pmYes, but many current scopes have a wide screen already. E.g Rigol DS2000 and MSO5000 both have roughly 16:10 aspect ratio.Quote from: Renate on July 06, 2020, 05:44:27 pmYes, e.g. LeCroy LabMaster 10-100zi or the Tektronix 5 Series. I don't recommend looking them up though, the prices are not for the faint of heart.Anyway, I personally like real separate controls for most everything on a workhorse scope.

author: David Hess
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: July 07, 2020, 07:43:02 pm
content: Quote from: Renate on July 06, 2020, 05:44:27 pmWith some early exceptions, CRT oscilloscopes settled on 5:4 which makes for a convenient 10 horizontal divisions and 8 vertical divisions. Deviating further from a 1:1 aspect ratio would compromise linearity and geometry.QuoteLike capt bullshot says, for reasons of cost, modern DSOs limit themselves to the common aspect ratios used in consumer electronics so 16:10 or 16:9. Laptop computers and desktop monitors do the same thing.

author: nctnico
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: July 07, 2020, 07:54:04 pm
content: Quote from: Renate on July 06, 2020, 05:44:27 pmThose landscape displays do exist (1280x480 for example). It is called ultra wide.But if you think about it then it really doesn't matter whether the grid is rectangular or not. A wider cell has more pixels horizontally so you see more of the signal. All in all, the wider the display the more signal you can see. Most of the DSOs you can buy nowadays have wide (16:9-ish) TFT screens.

author: Renate
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: July 08, 2020, 01:21:35 am
content: Thanks for all the responses.I just thought that since everyone has such strong opinions about oscopes, aspect ratio would weigh in somewhere.You wouldn't believe it, but I once fixed a TV with a 10 MHz oscope.And the sweep wasn't even calibrated!

author: wizard69
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: July 09, 2020, 04:24:51 am
content: Quote from: Renate on July 06, 2020, 06:09:29 pmYou didn't mention your usage but have you considered a USB/PCI/LXI scope? I know some people don't like USB scopes but I'm not sure if anybody has tried the latest USB-C/3 offerings.As to your question, yes I prefer the wider scope displays. A lot of that is due to how I use them at work setting up high speed packaging machinery and other electromechanical gadgets.

author: james_s
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: July 09, 2020, 07:10:04 am
content: Almost all modern scopes have wide aspect ratio displays because those are what are widely available and cheap.Personally I prefer a 4:3 rectangular display on a scope but that's probably mostly because I'm old enough to have lived most of my life with 4:3 displays being the norm. I've gotten used to wide screens on TVs and laptops but wide screen scopes still look strange to me.

author: Kleinstein
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: July 09, 2020, 09:33:55 am
content: The modern DSOs tend to add extra information to the sides or top bottom. So a wide screen could have the exra info more on the side instead of bottom. So they can adapt to the screens available.

author: SilverSolder
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: July 09, 2020, 03:09:35 pm
content: When it comes to screens, the bigger the better... my next scope will probably be a USB model for this reason, so I can use a 24" or bigger monitor with it.Along with the fact that I usually end up importing data to the PC from the scope because that's where I work with the data, has led me to the conclusion that the USB scopes are worth looking at.

author: SiliconWizard
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: July 09, 2020, 04:48:58 pm
content: As said, scope displays tend to follow the trend for other applications, for cost reasons to begin with. These days, a decent 16:9/16:10 IPS panel can be had for pretty cheap, whereas for a different form factor you will usually have to settle for "industrial" displays which can be VERY expensive. Back in the old CRT days, wide screens were very uncommon and would have been very expensive. So that's the cost factor.As to usability, it really depends on your use case. If you're typically often capturing "digital" signals and want to analyze a significant portion of them, a wide screen will be better obviously. You'll appreciate having more horizontally, and won't care as much for amplitudes. But you may also want to analyze signals where amplitude matters more, and then you'll appreciate having more vertically.Of course for specific uses, you can always either use some kind of USB scope, or just grab the samples from your scope and display them on a computer screen.

author: IDEngineer
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: July 09, 2020, 06:24:49 pm
content: My two cents: I love larger displays, especially when coupled with higher resolution A/D's. But I have mixed emotions about the "wider than ten divisions" aspect ratios. While I appreciate seeing more of the time domain on the screen, it's darned useful to be able to make quick mental calculations using the timebase and knowing there are ten displayed major increments. My Rigol 4000 series displays 14(!?!) major horizontal divisions which makes quick-glance calculations nearly impossible.

author: David Hess
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: July 10, 2020, 10:00:36 am
content: Quote from: IDEngineer on July 09, 2020, 06:24:49 pmIn the past there was a push to use vertically oriented displays but it never caught on. LeCroy currently has something like that with a rotatable display.

author: Kleinstein
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: July 10, 2020, 10:38:18 am
content: With more channels one also need space in the vertical direction, so especially with 4 channels a wide but flat display could be more of a problem.

author: SilverSolder
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: July 10, 2020, 01:05:19 pm
content: The high end scopes all seem to come with a nice big screen. If the screen is big enough, the aspect ratio may be less important.

author: NiHaoMike
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: July 10, 2020, 01:29:14 pm
content: What I would like to see is a scope that uses a HDMI display at 1440p or more. The extra resolution really makes a difference with many channels and longer captures.

author: SilverSolder
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: July 10, 2020, 01:39:45 pm
content: Quote from: NiHaoMike on July 10, 2020, 01:29:14 pmWhile you are under 40 and your eyesight is keen, the high resolution solution is good! - once past 50, most people will prefer a bigger screen, easier to see.

author: Renate
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: July 10, 2020, 05:23:40 pm
content: The higher display resolution, higher aspect ratio of the USB scopes is what I like.But the Hantek scope I have has a GUI out of the 1990's (and it's not in Sigrok.)So I'm working on writing my own.Yes, it has popup dialogs, but it also has enough hot keys and everything works with the scroll wheel too.Shown: why you should use pullups on I²C.

author: SilverSolder
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: July 10, 2020, 06:29:23 pm
content: Quote from: Renate on July 10, 2020, 05:23:40 pmInteresting! - what model Hantek do you use?

author: Renate
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: July 10, 2020, 06:38:36 pm
content: It's the HT6052BE, which is entirely different than the more common 6022.

author: NiHaoMike
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: July 10, 2020, 10:39:24 pm
content: Quote from: SilverSolder on July 10, 2020, 01:39:45 pmThere are so many big cheap 4K displays out there you shouldn't have any difficulty finding one. Even Walmart has quite a selection of them.It's silly to have a nice 12 bit ADC but not the screen resolution to display it. Especially when there are multiple channels on at once and you don't want to overlap them.

author: SilverSolder
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: July 10, 2020, 11:00:25 pm
content: Quote from: NiHaoMike on July 10, 2020, 10:39:24 pmAre you on USB scopes as well?

author: NiHaoMike
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: July 11, 2020, 01:18:07 am
content: Quote from: SilverSolder on July 10, 2020, 11:00:25 pmI like the idea but not the implementations that currently exist. PCIe would probably be a better idea if you want to turn a PC into a scope.What I'm thinking of is a dedicated appliance that has the front ends, ADCs, and processing logic, but no built in display. Instead, it has HDMI output to connect an external display. Or now that COVID-19 has greatly increased the demand for working from home, stream the display over a network with hardware encoding. (Currently using some Tektronix scopes at work, the remote access feature is very useful but a bit slower than I like, not to mention the web UI for reconfiguring the scope is quite clunky.)

author: David Hess
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: July 12, 2020, 02:31:24 am
content: Quote from: NiHaoMike on July 11, 2020, 01:18:07 amThat is how the higher end Tektronix DSOs work; the oscilloscope is just a PCIe card on a PC motherboard.The advantage of using PCIe instead of USB is that the powerful PC CPU can be used for decimation functions instead of only display processing.

author: vk6zgo
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: July 12, 2020, 04:20:57 am
content: Quote from: Renate on July 08, 2020, 01:21:35 amBack in the day, that's what a lot of TV service techs used, so I have no problem believing it.Any Oscilloscope beats just a DMM or VOM any day for TV work.I traced a fault in a car ignition system once, using a BWD CRO with a triggering problem."Back probing" on the EMM auto type connector & "waiting for a pulse to drift by", proved the auto mechanic was talking crap when he said "it's in the computer".

author: james_s
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: July 12, 2020, 04:33:38 am
content: Quote from: IDEngineer on July 09, 2020, 06:24:49 pmA larger screen is nice if it doesn't make the whole scope larger, obviously there's a limit there. I think the TDS3000 series is just about the perfect size, if I were designing it today I'd probably go with a display about half an inch bigger with a correspondingly more narrow bezel but no need to have it huge. A VGA or in modern times HDMI port can allow connecting as big monitor as someone wants.

author: vk6zgo
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: July 12, 2020, 04:37:49 am
content: Quote from: IDEngineer on July 09, 2020, 06:24:49 pmThe current generation doesn't believe in "counting squares" & relies upon the "on screen" numerical displays as gospel.This makes a lot of posted screenshots hard to work out for OFs who don't have that brand, or, indeed, as in my case,anybrand, of DSO, because the presentation varies so much.The graticule is usually either almost, or completely, invisible, so our normal "quick estimations" become difficult.

author: capt bullshot
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: July 12, 2020, 07:43:02 am
content: Quote from: vk6zgo on July 12, 2020, 04:37:49 amYep, I'd always have to ask for the V/div and sec/div settings if a colleague shows me a scope screenshot. He's nearly always getting in trouble finding that number in the huge variety of displayed measurements and whatnot. Most often these readouts have way more digits than reasonable. Once a student that did some work for me pointed to an DC voltage reading on the scope screen to prove that voltage was within its specsTold him to use the multimeter that sat unused next to the scope.