The WFM700 Series of Multi-format Waveform Monitors offers the monitoring capabilities needed in the production, post-production, distribution, and transmission of high-definition (HD) and standard-definition (SD) digital video content.

For mixed HD/SD environments, the multi-format WFM700A gives you the tools you need to perform operational monitoring tasks like checking signal validity and content quality, setting levels, and verifying signal paths. The WFM700HD offers an HD-only version of these same capabilities. The WFM700M offers all the capabilities of the WFM700A plus the digital analysis capabilities important in the design, installation, and maintenance of digital video systems, including eye diagram with automated measurements, jitter, and data measurements for both HD and SD formats. With available digital audio monitoring support, you can expand the capabilities of any WFM700 configuration to monitor both digital video and audio in a single instrument.

These products combine the best of traditional waveform monitors with the measurement accuracy, repeatability, and stability achievable with fully digital technology. Their modular design lets you purchase the capability you need now and add capabilities later as your requirements change. Backed by Tektronix innovation, service, and support, these modular, multi-format, fully digital waveform monitors lower your cost of ownership while offering powerful tools for monitoring digital video and audio signals.

Tektronix-exclusive Color Gamut Monitoring

Problems with production and operational equipment can introduce illegal colors in the digital video signal, i.e. colors that fall outside established gamut limits. Every member of the WFM700 Series has the following Tektronix patented gamut monitoring displays:

• Diamond and Split Diamond – monitoring for RGB gamut compliance
• Arrowhead – monitoring for composite gamut compliance including luma+chroma and separate luma limit checking

With these specialized displays you can significantly reduce the time and effort needed to perform this critical quality control task:

The Diamond Display helps you quickly and easily analyze RGB gamut problems. At a glance, you can tell if any part of the signal trace lies outside the graticule, indicating a gamut error. The display's construction makes it easy to isolate the source of the problem. Errors appearing only in the upper diamond indicate a problem with the blue component, while errors appearing only in the lower diamond indicate a red component problem. An error that appears in both diamonds exposes a problem with the green component. The Diamond display gives you a unique, visual indication of signal components that are causing gamut errors so you can quickly make the adjustments needed to correct the problem.

WFM700 Diamond display

The Split Diamond display separates the two diamonds to help you easily detect component values below the black level. Both the Diamond display and the Split Diamond display offer user-adjustable thresholds for the white and black level of each component, and a single touch returns you to default settings quickly.

WFM700 Split Diamond displayvOften, digital video in component format is converted into NTSC or PAL composite video format for transmission. Due to differences in component and composite color spaces, video signals that fall within legal RGB color space may not convert into signals that fall within a legal composite gamut.

The Arrowhead display helps you quickly detect this type of color gamut error, without the need for a separate composite encoder. To form the Arrowhead display, the WFM700 transforms the component signal into an NTSC or PAL composite signal representation and plots the luminance component of this signal vertically against the chrominance component plotted horizontally. Component signal values that correspond to out-of-gamut NTSC or PAL composite signal values will lie outside the legal region shown on the Arrowhead display.

You can adjust the thresholds used to define out-of-gamut conditions in the Arrowhead display, tailoring the monitor's operation to fit your specific requirements. The Arrowhead display has adjustable luma+chroma limits and luma-only limits. Each allows user-defined upper and lower limits. You can easily assess luma-only and luma+chroma compliance all within the Arrowhead display.

WFM700 Arrowhead display

Familiar Waveform Monitoring Displays and Controls

All WFM700 models offer familiar waveform displays. You can view digital video signal components in either an RGB, YRGB, YPbPr color space, displayed in parade or overlay mode. The YRGB color space combines the Y luminance signal with the RGB component signals to give you benefits from both traditional color spaces.

WFM700 YRGB Waveform display in parade mode

In addition to these digital waveform displays, the WFM700 products can also display a familiar composite representation of an SDI digital signal.

WFM700 Composite Waveform display

Every WFM700 model offers a rich set of familiar waveform display controls including:

• 1-line, 2-line, 1-field, and 2-field sweep selections
• Line and field selects
• Flat and low-pass filtering
• 1x, 5x, 10x and variable gain settings
• 0% and 7.5% setup levels in the composite waveform representation
• Offset and aligned chroma settings in YPbPr color space
• Horizontal magnification
• Selectable graticules including mV, IRE, and % scales

When used in 2-line sweep mode, the magnify feature will automatically configure the instrument for optimal viewing of the horizontal blanking interval on any SD or HD digital signal, eliminating the need for tedious, trial-and-error adjustment.

Radition and Innovation in Monitoring Color Amplitude and Timing

Complementing these full-featured waveform displays, every WFM700 product offers two specialized displays for monitoring the color information in digital video signals.

• The traditional Vector display for monitoring PbPr color amplitude
• The Tektronix-patented Lightning display for monitoring luma and chroma amplitudes and interchannel timing

The Vector Display gives you a choice of representations, either component graticule or composite graticule. The composite representation is independent of the input signal colorimetry and gives the best indication of hue shift. The component representation allows comparisons with equipment having similar Vector display representations.

Selecting the composite graticule will show the color vector with the traditional compass rose display. You can manually configure the compass rose for the appropriate composite standard, either NTSC or PAL, or let the instrument automatically select the appropriate display based on the type of signal monitored. Like the composite analog waveform representation, you can apply either 0% or 7.5% setup levels to waveforms.

In the component representation, you can configure the display to either show or remove the compass rose graticule. You can also choose to display the I and Q color axes.

WFM700 Vector display with composite graticule (compass rose)

The Tektronix-exclusive Lightning Display combines chrominance and luminance information in a unique approach that helps you quickly detect and isolate amplitude and timing problems in these signal components. Most importantly, you can use a standard color bars signal to make these measurements. You do not need to use special test signals. Only the Lightning display gives you the ability to use readily available signals for making these critical measurements, saving you both time and resources.

The Lightning display is especially useful in detecting and isolating interchannel timing problems. Bowing of traces in the upper half of the display represents a timing problem between Y and Pb, while bowing in the lower half of the display represents timing errors between Y and Pr. Calibrated graticule marks on the display help you quantify these timing errors.

WFM700 Lightning display

You can set either 75% or 100% color bar targets on both the Vector and Lightning display, or use the gain settings to normalize signal amplitudes. In the Lightning display you can use the magnification settings to expand the display scale for better viewing of the graticule marks.

Automatic Detection of a Wide Range of Signal Formats

All WFM700 models have two terminating inputs for serial digital signals in either SMPTE 292M format (WFM700 HD, WFM700A, and WFM700M) or SMPTE 259M format (WFM700A and WFM700M). The following table shows the supported signal formats

*1 ITU-R BT.601 defines sampling for SD serial digital video per SMPTE 259M and ITU-R BT.656.

*2 These segmented-frame format signals are detected as their corresponding interlaced format.

The monitor will automatically detect the signal format and establish the appropriate settings for the various displays.

Every WFM700 model will also automatically detect the colorimetry of an HD input signal, or you can manually select either ITU-R BT.709-2 or SMPTE 240M.

All models accept an external reference signal for synchronization. You can let the instrument automatically detect the external reference signal format or manually select any of the following formats: NTSC, PAL, 1080i (50 Hz, 59.94 Hz, 60 Hz), 1080p (23.98 Hz, 24 Hz), or 720p (59.94 Hz).

“Status-at-a-Glance” Video Session Display

In addition to detecting a wide range of video signal characteristics, the WFM700 waveform monitors offer valuable status and error reporting capabilities, like the unique Video Session display. This display summarizes a variety of statistics relevant to video content health and standards compliance, including:

• Signal format and colorimetry Stuck bits indicator Presence or absence of ancillary data, including embedded audio, closed caption data, or timecodes Presence or absence of color gamut errors CRC values Errored seconds, errored fields, and % errored fields statistics

WFM700 Video Session display

The comprehensive summary available on the Video Session screen offers singular insight into video signal quality over time including the percentage of total content in error. It gives you a powerful tool for verifying video content quality, especially valuable in supplying documentation for contractual or business arrangements based on content quality.

Timing Reference and Auxiliary Data Monitoring

Every WFM700 Series product can detect information contained in the horizontal and vertical synchronization intervals in the digital video, including:

• Start-of-Active-Video (SAV) and End-of-Active-Video (EAV)
• Error detection and reporting per SMPTE RP165 for standard definition and SMPTE 292M for high definition
• Presence of closed caption information in accordance with EIA608 and, if presence, decode and display the data on picture display
• Presence of closed caption information embedded in accordance with EIA708 and ARIB B37 standards
• Ancillary Time Code (ATC) and Vertical Interval Time Code (VITC) values
• Presence of V-chip data and, if presence, the decoded rating information
• Presence of ARIB STD-B39, ARIB STD-B35, ARIB TR-B22, and ARIB TR-B23

Depending on your preference, WFM700 waveform monitors can either show the SAV and EAV in waveform display or strip out this data prior to display.

WFM700 Auxiliary Data Status display

The Ancillary Data Display helps you view information contained in any ancillary data packet by specifying the appropriate first data identifier (DID) and secondary data identifier (SDID). All WFM700 Series waveform monitors can display the data as a table of data words in hex format. The display can also show information on data block and count, packet type, and checksums.

WFM700 Ancillary Data display

Every WFM700 Series product can detect the presence of closed caption data that confirms to EIA608, EIA708, and ARIB B37 standard. For EIA608 format, all WFM700 models can decode and display the closed caption data on picture display with the actual line number containing these closed caption data.

WFM700 picture display with decoded EIA608 Closed Caption data

User-adjustable Alarms and Event Logging

Further enhancing the capability available with the Video Session display, all WFM700 Series instruments can report and log a wide range of alarm conditions, including:

• Input signal or external reference signal missing or format mismatch
• Color gamut errors
• EAV/SAV missing or mismatch with line number
• SAV placement error
• CRC and EDH errors, code word violations, or field and line length errors
• Ancillary data and Closed Caption present/absent errors, parity errors, or checksum errors

You can adjust the thresholds used in detecting color gamut errors to customize alarm reporting to your requirements.

WFM700 General Alarm Status display

No single alarm signal mechanism works for all facilities. Consequently, every WFM700 waveform monitor lets you chose any of the following alarm reporting methods:

• Audible beep
• On-screen icon or message
• Output on remote control port
• Event Log entry
• SNMP trap

With a simple, push-button style user interface, you can configure the waveform monitor to use any combination of these alarm-reporting mechanisms. You can select different combinations for different alarms.

WFM700 Alarm Configuration display

Every WFM700 model maintains an event log with each entry stamped with the time-of-day the event occurred. You can also configure event logging to time stamp events with a VITC value.

Recording each individual event separately can fill the event log quickly. To address this, the event classifies entries as:

• Single shot - one isolated occurrence
• Continuous - uninterrupted sequence of occurrences
• Intermittent - interrupted sequence of closely spaced occurrences

The event log stores a continuous event sequence as two entries marking the beginning and ending of the sequence, saving space and increasing the time span of the log. When storing intermittent events you can choose between two logging modes:

• Log for resolution - Log intermittent events as separate entries, giving you the information needed to determine when the individual events occurred
• Log for duration - Log for a longer time period by combining intermittent events into a single log entry

By offering more sophisticated logging, the WFM700 Series lets you tailor event logging to help you troubleshoot challenging operational failures, or meet any reporting requirements specified in service level agreements.

WFM700 Event Log

Convenient User Interface Features and Display Modes

WFM700 waveform monitors offer many convenient user interface features and display modes, including:

• An integrated thin-film LCD color display with touch screen
• Full screen and thumbnail picture display
• Multi-mode display capability that lets you flexibly combine two displays into a single, split-screen view
• Freeze mode for comparing live signals against a stored reference
• Electronic graticules and digital cursors
• Safe action and safe title graticules that help you easily identify incorrectly positioned video content
• Up to 42 stored presets
• Print screen capability, context sensitive on-line help, and complete instrument diagnostics

The LCD display effectively uses color to help you analyze waveforms. A simple, soft key menu structure uses touch-screen control to avoid complex setup, configuration, and control operation. Touch-screen control also simplifies the front panel layout, creating a clean design with a large display. Context-specific assignment of the general-purpose knob makes it easy to adjust cursors, navigate through menus, and enter numeric values.

WFM700 Front Panel

With a color display, WFM700 monitors can show a full-screen version of the picture content in the monitored video signal. In addition to the full-screen view, all WFM700 models can display a thumbnail version of the picture on the Waveform, Vector, Lighting, Gamut, and data displays to help you easily correlate signal characteristics with actual picture content.

In Line Select mode, a gold cursor overlaid on the thumbnail display indicates the position of the currently monitored video line or sample. You can also select “brightup” conditions that show the location of RGB or composite gamut errors on the picture display.

WFM700 Full-screen Picture display

WFM700 Thumbnail Picture display

The Multi-mode Display combines two different displays into a single, split-screen view. You can determine the arrangement of the displays on the split-screen and access the full-screen display menus directly from multi-mode. The color thumbnail display is available in most combinations. The flexibility offered in multi-mode lets you form the display combinations that best address your needs, giving you a powerful tool for verifying signal quality and diagnosing problems.

WFM700 Multi-mode display

Dealing with subtle or intermittent failures presents a special challenge. The Freeze Mode offered on every WFM700 model lets you compare a live signal to a previously captured reference signal. With Freeze mode you can detect small or intermittent changes or easily compare complex signals, helping you diagnose these difficult problems.

WFM700 Freeze Mode display

Video monitors and television sets may overscan, i.e. placing parts of the image outside the display area. Incorrect placements of graphics, logos, and other branding elements can obscure text or essential action. The Safe Action and Safe Title graticules help you quickly assure that the action and titles you produced lie within the safe areas defined in SMPTE RP218. The Safe Action Area is the maximum image area within which all significant action shall be contained while the Safe Title Area is the maximum image area within which all significant titles should be contained.

WFM700 picture display with Safe Action and Safe Title Graticules in HD format

The all-digital design of the WFM700 Series offers improved performance and convenience in measuring waveform parameters. Electronic graticules let you chose the best reference scale for a measurement. Digital cursors accurately measure voltage and time deltas in all standard and magnified sweeps. On-screen readouts and icons overlaid on the display inform you of signal parameters and instrument settings or conditions, including:

• Selected input, input format, colorimetry, and displayed waveform component
• Sweep, gain, and magnification settings
• Line, sample, and field selections
• Cursor readings
• Errors and alarm conditions

WFM700 Waveform display with electronic graticules and digital cursors

Every WFM700 waveform monitor saves the instrument state when powered down and automatically restores this state when powered up. In addition, you can configure up to 42 presents to set up common configurations at the touch of a button.

Taken together, the user interface features and display modes just described create a flexible, intuitive and feature-rich environment you will find easy to learn and easy to use.

Powerful Digital Video Waveform Measurement Available

For in-depth technical measurement of digital video signals, you need additional capabilities. For making highly precise inter-channel amplitude and timing measurements, every WFM700 model offers the familiar Bowtie display. The WFM700M offers more comprehensive measurement capability, adding the following displays to those offered on the WFM700A and WFM700HD:

• Data display
• Eye pattern display with automated measurements
• Jitter display

If you currently use a WFM700A or WFH700HD, you can add these measurement capabilities by ordering the WFM7M field upgrade kit.

The Bowtie Display adds to the timing measurement capability available in the Lightning display. Using a special Bowtie test signal in component format, this display helps you make precise and accurate measurements of inter-channel amplitude and timing. The left bowtie shows the amplitude and timing relationship between the 1st and 2nd components in the test signal, while the right bowtie shows these relationships between the 1st and 3rd components. An inter-channel amplitude problem widens the signal at the center null position in the bowtie. An inter-channel timing problem shifts this center null position.

WFM700 Bowtie display

The Data Display available on the WFM700M gives you detailed information on the actual data values in the video signals. You can use this display to locate protocol errors or view ancillary data.

The right side of the display shows the data values in either hexadecimal, decimal, or binary format and uses the following color coding for easy identification of data types and errors:

• Green – Active video data
• Gray – Data in horizontal or vertical blanking intervals
• White – EAV, SAV, and other reserved words
• Yellow – Data outside nominally allowed values
• Red – Data with illegal values

The left side of display shows un-interpolated digital values plotted against sample number as a digital waveform. You can configure this display in either video mode or data mode.

In video mode, the display shows the Y, Cb, Cr values aligned temporally, but offset vertically. Like the waveform display, you can configure the display to show 1, 2, or all 3 components.

For SD signals, data mode shows the data in the same sequence as it occurs in the SDI signal, i.e. Y, Cb, Y’, Cr where Y is the co-sited luma sample and Y’ is the isolated luma sample. For HD signals, data mode splits the data into a Y channel and a multiplexed Cb, Cr channel, again to match the data orientation in the SDI signal.

You can display a thumbnail picture view in the data display, with cursor overlays showing the current line and sample.

WFM700 Data display

Using the WFM700M Eye Pattern Display, you can view and measure the amplitude, rise time, aberrations, and jitter of the both SD and HD serial digital signals. The automated Eye measurements feature includes a histogram of the Eye sample amplitude values that gives you another aid for understanding the characteristics of the SDI signal. The 3-Eye display shows jitter uncorrelated to the parallel word length. To view jitter characteristics correlated to the parallel word you can select either the 10-Eye (SD) or 20-Eye (HD) display. Clock recovery bandwidth adjustable to 10 Hz, 100 Hz, and 1 kHz helps you isolate the jitter components of interest.

WFM700 Eye Pattern display

In Jitter Display mode, the WFM700M demodulates the signal jitter, displays a trace of video-correlated jitter vs. time, and measures peak-to-peak time jitter in the active display. To isolate timing and alignment jitter components you can select one of four high-pass filters with 10 Hz, 1 kHz, 10 kHz, and 100 kHz cutoff frequencies, respectively. When placed in Line Select mode, the WFM700M will measure the jitter of the selected line, giving you greater precision than waveform monitors that only measure field jitter. The WFM700M also makes the jitter demodulator output available on an external connector so you can attach an oscilloscope or spectrum analyzer for further analysis.

WFM700 Jitter Mode display

Using the digital signal processing capabilities available in the all-digital WFM700 Series, the WFM700M makes these critical measurements with a high-degree of accuracy, stability, and repeatability – the measurement performance you would expect from Tektronix.

The automated Eye measurements include amplitude, rise time, fall time, rise overshoot, fall overshoot, and a histogram of the Eye sample amplitude values. In Jitter Display mode, the WFM700M demodulates the signal jitter, displays a trace of video-correlated jitter vs. time, and measures peak-to-peak time jitter in the active display.

Digital Audio Monitoring Available on All Models

All members of the WFM700 Series detect and report the presence or absence of embedded audio channels. You can add more extensive capability for monitoring AES/EBU digital audio channels by including Option DG in your order for any WFM700 Series waveform monitor. You can add this audio monitoring capability to a previously purchased WFM700 model by ordering the WFM7DG field upgrade.

WFM700 Series digital audio monitoring and measurement features include:

• Monitoring of up to 16 embedded digital audio channels
• 4 AES/EBU audio inputs/outputs for monitoring up to 8 non-embedded audio channels, or producing up to 8 channels of de-embedded audio output
• Support for multi-channel digital audio in 5.1 and 7.1 formats
• Audio Level Bar display of 2, 4, 6, or 8 audio channels with true peak, PPM, and Extended VU meter ballistics and selectable scaling
• Single-axis Phase Correlation Meter showing the phase relationship between signals on an audio channel pair
• Flexible Lissajous display showing the phase relationship between channels, with X/Y or Sound Stage (L/R) axis orientation and automatic gain control
• Surround Sound Display for 5.1 multi-channel digital audio format with total volume, center volume, phantom source, and dominant sound indicator as well as LS and RS correlation meter

Surround Sound Display helps you more precisely mix, master, edit, and verify 5.1 multi-channel digital audio. The visual representation of the sound image complements your auditory experience.

The display shows the audio level balance among the left (L), right (R), left-surround (LS), and right-surround (RS) channels on the ruled scales radiating from the center. A vertical bar between the L and R channels shows the center (C) channel audio level.

The polygon formed by connecting the level indicator endpoints shows the total sound volume formed by the L, R, LS, and RS channels. This connecting line will bend away from the center if the two signals have a positive correlation, will bend towards the center if the signals have a negative correlation, and will not bend if the signals have no correlation. In addition to this total volume indicator, the display has a separate center volume indicator by connecting the ends of the L, C, and R channel level by straight lines.

Phantom source indicators (PSIs) located on each side of the display show the location of potential phantom sound sources formed by adjacent channels.

The display also has a cross-hair pointer that shows the location of the dominant sound in the sound image, and a correlation meter at the bottom of the display that shows the correlation between the Ls and Rs channel.

WFM700 5.1 multi-channel Surround Sound displays

You can configure the waveform monitor to display either the Audio Level Bars with Phase Correlation Meters or combined with the Lissajous display into a single view.

WFM700 Audio monitoring with Level Bars and Lissajous displays

The audio monitoring module supports the embedded and AES/EBU formats shown in the following table:

Complementing these standard displays, the Channel Status display decodes the information in the Channel Status block defined in AES3-1992 (r1997) for both consumer-grade and professional-grade audio.

WFM700 Audio Channel Status display

Option DG adds configuration controls that let you select the audio channels you want to monitor and to tailor channel assignments to best meet your requirements. The configuration menus include standard channel assignments for multi-channel 5.1 and 7.1 audio formats, and for stereo pairs. For multi-channel audio, it is important to ensure the correct phase relationship between channels and groups. A flexible Lissajous display allows each channel to be compared to any other channel. This is especially useful in verifying the correct amplitude and phase relationship between line-up tones.

WFM700 AES input configuration screen

Audio monitoring support adds several alarm conditions to the list of video alarms described earlier, including detection of:

• Audio CRC errors
• Clip, mute, over, and silence conditions
• Audio parity errors
• Embedded audio absence and AES audio unlock

You can set the thresholds that trigger alarms on over and silence conditions. This feature is ideally suited for monitoring digital audio derived from analog audio sources. For example, due to the digitization of audio hum, these signals do not typically contain the all-zero samples that trigger a mute alarm. In this case, you can use the adjustable silence alarm to detect loss of audio program.

Like the session display used to monitor video signals, all WFM700 models with audio monitoring capability offer an Audio Session screen that lets you quickly check the health of any digital audio channels and track key audio signal parameters. Key fields include:

• Highest true peak, highest uninterpolated peak, and highest bar reading
• Sample rate and active bits
• The number of clips, mutes, overs, and silences
• Invalid samples
• Detected receiver errors

WFM700 Audio Session display

Like the Video Session display, the Audio Session display gives you a powerful tool for verifying and documenting content quality.

In the multi-mode display of a WFM700 waveform monitor with audio monitoring capability, you can combine the Audio Level Bar and Phase Correlation Meter display, the Lissajous display, Surround Sound display, the Audio Channel Status display or the Audio Session display with any of the displays already available in multi-mode.

Adding audio monitoring capability to a WFM700 waveform monitor gives you a powerful, space-efficient, and cost-effective solution for monitoring and measuring your digital video and audio signals.

Multiple Inputs/Outputs for Easy System Integration

In addition to the inputs and outputs described earlier, every WFM700 model has the following connections:

• VGA output for viewing the LCD display on a detached VGA monitor
• Analog component video picture monitor outputs
• VGA picture monitor output that follows the component picture monitor output for viewing the picture on an inexpensive VGA display
• Looping inputs for bi-level and tri-level sync
• One switched SDI output that follows the selected input
• An SD SDI picture monitor output

WFM700 Back Panel with two WFM700M video input modules and an audio input module installed.

For the component video picture monitor output, you can select signal format (RGB, Y'P'bP'r) and HD colorimetry (ITU-R BT.709, SMPTE 240M). You can also select picture brightups for RGB and composite gamut errors as well as Line/Sample brightups for use in Line Select mode operation to indicate the monitored line and sample on the external picture monitor.

With these connections, you have a wide range of choices for integrating the WFM700 waveform monitor into your facility, as illustrated in the following diagram.

System integration diagram showing a WFM700 Waveform Monitor with external displays

Network Access and Control

As the industry consolidates production, distribution, and transmission facilities, remote access and control of monitoring equipment becomes increasingly important. The WFM700 Series offers two forms of remote access and control:

• A 9-pin remote control port reports alarm conditions and lets you control the monitor by selecting one of seven available instrument presets
• A network remote control interface lets you view the WFM700 displays using a standard Web-browser over an Ethernet-based network
• SNMP (Simple Network Management Protocol) speeds development and integration of remote control software for external control and reporting of major functions of the WFM700, including all error alarms

WFM700 Network remote control interface

The network communication software supports both manual assignment of IP addresses and the use of a DHCP server.