Abstract: An ancillary data distribution display presents a graphic display in Cartesian coordinates of the video line numbers for a video frame from a serial digital video data stream along one axis and a data count for each line along the other axis for ancillary data extracted from the serial digital video data stream. The data count may represent packets of data, words of data or normalized delta values based upon the average number of data words per line for the video frame. The axis representing the data count is adaptive according to the maximum data count for the data type per video frame displayed. A particular line of the serial digital video data stream may be selected, with the graphical representation being highlighted as a cursor and the selected line number and the corresponding data count being displayed alphanumerically. The video frame may be split to provide two halves of the frame side-by-side on the display.