Thursday, June 02, 2011

Tektronix WVR5200

During a manic day I was fortunate enough to bump into my old Tektronix mucker Tom Perry who had a new WVR5200 in his rucksack and gave me a quick in-the-street demo! It seems like a much more complete instrument than the current WVR5000 'scope and I can't believe it won't cannibalize their WVR7000 and 8000-series business. The things that stood out for me are:
  • Much improved four-tile monitoring with four inputs that can be configured as 4 x SDi (270M, 1.48G, or 3G - yes!) or 2 x dual-link. With four discrete inputs you can display all four at once.
  • An SDi o/p that can be any of the inputs OR a test output with bars or pathological signal.
  • Audio loudness - and up to 16 channels via embedded groups
  • Full Java control (the 5000 lacked this)


So I think this is excellent - the only thing missing is physical layer measurements. Some of the better features are paid-for upgrades (license key) but at £4.5k this represents superb value.
I shall write more when I've had one in to evaluate.

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