How much does a DigiView™ capture?

That is a difficult question to answer. DigiView always captures more (usually much more) than a traditional analyzer with similar specs., but the exact amount depends on the data characteristics, the active channels and the USB port speed.

Since DigiVIew always compresses the data, we track storage in terms of 'Transitions' rather than the more traditional 'Samples'. The rest of this page will give you a good idea of how many transitions we store. It also converts this to 'Samples' so that you can do an Apples-to-Apples comparison with other instruments.

In general, you will capture about:
Samples ≈ Transitions * Sample-Rate / Data-Rate
Time ≈ Samples * Sample-Rate

In most cases, you will capture 100M transitions. However, if your data rate approaches your sample rate, or over-runs the USB port, the number of transitions captured can be reduced. Note: these extreme edge cases do NOT cause a failure. They simply result in a reduced (but still significant) capture size. See Hybrid Controller for details.

The shear number of permutations of data formats, data speed, bus loads, and mode configurations makes it impractical to present enough examples to fairly represent what you should expect. So we created the following interactive chart to calculate close approximations for each configuration with a variety of data formats and speeds.

The chart does not account for all of the compression nuances or every data pattern, but does provide thousands of permutations and should present an honest representation of real-world results.


Interactive Chart
Configuration
?
Choose DigiView Mode:
  • 4 channels @ 1Gsps
  • 9 channels @ 500Msps
  • 18 channels @ 250Msps
Channels
USB Port
High Duration

Low Duration

ns


ns

1 MHz

25 %
Capture Counts
Samples 4B
Symbols 4M Bytes
Time 38 Sec
Resolution 1 ns
Stream­ing Load 0%
Mode Streaming


Takeaways
  • Use 'Samples' parameter to compare to other Logic Analyzers
  • Most data is streamable, allowing for extended storage.
  • Ultra-fast, non-streamable data results in less extended storage; not a capture failure.
  • Data gaps, low bus utilization or slower data-rates automatically result in longer capture times at full resolution.
  • Unlike traditional analyzers, always captures at full resolution. Essential for capturing mixed high-speed bursts and long gaps.
See Hybrid Controller for detailed information about streamable data-rate limits, streaming enhancements, and the fall-back implementation.

Need more information?

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DV509

DigiView DV509 Contents
9 channels
1Gsps@4ch
500Msps@9ch
Typical capture1:
100M Transitions, > 1B samples
4M-18M Protocol Characters/Bytes

$599

DV518

DigiView DV518 Contents
18 channels
1Gsps@4ch, 500Msps@9ch
250Msps@18ch
Typical capture1:
100M Transitions, > 1B samples
4M-18M Protocol Characters/Bytes

$749


All DigiViews include: • All available Protocol Plugins • USB and Data Cables • Full compliment of Micro-grabber clips • Plugin Developers' Kit • Free lifetime software updates and support

1 Try our interactive chart for more capture details.

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