Transcoder Performance Test Application

If you are experiencing issues with the transcoding card in your environment  and want to test its performance, you can run a test application called "sngtc_client".

For Sangoma Media Gateway users:

 -> The test application is installed as a binary file located in /usr/local/smg/usr/bin

This test application will use a sample file of your choice and create transcoding sessions with the vocallo module residing inside the transcoder card.  If no errors occur, the transcoded output files will be created, which can then be used in an audio analyzer for quality analysis.

To start using the application, you must first have sngtc server running.  To turn it on, type:

-> sngtc_server_ctrl start

 

Before running the test, you may want to download a sample gsm audio file to serve as input. Use the following command:

        -> wget ftp://ftp.sangoma.com/linux/custom/transcode/demo-congrats.gsm

 

Below is an example string that was used to transcode an input file in gsm (demo-congrats.gsm) to g729ab with 1 session. If you would like to test other codecs, use "sngtc_client -codecs" to see a list of options.

->  sngtc_client -incodec gsm_fr -outcodec g729ab -infile demo-congrats.gsm -outfile demo-results -bindip <transcoder ethernet interface IP> -sessions 1 -verbosity 2

This command will send the demo-congrats.gsm file to the transcoder using the GSM codec and request transcoding to the G729AB codec. The returned audio will be stored in the file "demo-results". You can increase the number of sessions to the amount of sessions that your transcoder is licensed for if you want a more rigorous test.

The 'bindip' in the example above is the IP address of the ethernet interface of the transcoder card. To see help and additional options for the command, simply run "sngtc_client" with no parameters to see a list of possible options.

Ideally, you should be able to create the amount of sessions that your transcoder is licensed for.  Keep in mind that some codec translations involve more processing than others, so depending on what codecs you chose to transcode you might not reach exactly the amount of license sessions.

If you experience some errors during the test, please make sure that your firewall is not preventing traffic on the ethernet interface.  To turn firewall off temporarily to run the test application type:

->/etc/init.d/iptables stop

Then to turn them back on:

->/etc/init.d/iptables start