Audio & Video Test Solutions

Audio and video systems rely on high-speed serial interfaces to move digital media data between processors, codecs, DACs, and output stages. The I2S bus is the dominant interface for digital audio, carrying PCM sample data between components in everything from consumer headphones to professional studio equipment and automotive infotainment systems. Engineers developing AV products encounter challenges at multiple levels. At the physical layer, clock jitter and signal integrity issues cause audible artifacts or video glitches. At the protocol level, mismatched sample rates, incorrect word-select timing, and bit-alignment errors produce distorted or silent output that is difficult to diagnose without seeing the actual bus traffic. Multi-channel audio systems compound these issues with additional data lines and more complex clocking requirements. Acute instruments provide the visibility needed to debug AV signal chains. The TravelLogic and LA4000 series logic analyzers capture I2S bus traffic with high timing resolution, displaying decoded audio sample data alongside the bit clock, word select, and serial data signals. The MSO2000 and MSO3000 mixed-signal oscilloscopes let you correlate analog audio output with the digital I2S stream in a single synchronized capture, making it straightforward to trace distortion or dropouts from the DAC output back to the digital bus. With multi-channel capture capability and device cascading, you can monitor complex multi-codec systems without sacrificing sample rate or timing precision.