asterisk users - Jun 2006 - PCI or MiniPCI Hardware DSP for G.729, G.723.1 and/or GSM

Hi to all,

we are searching for a hardware based DSP solution for use
with Asterisk based on PCI or MiniPCI to reduce main processor
load and to use embedded boards with Digium E1/T1 cards like
TE410P.

does anyone know about any manufactorer of those cards or someone
who is able to develop/build such cards?

Specifications:
PCI or MiniPCI
up to 120 concurrent transcodings
Codecs: G.729/G.729A or G.723.1 or GSM or combinations of them

Thank you in advance,
Roland Zagler

On Thursday 22 June 2006 23:51, Roland Zagler wrote:
> Hi to all,
>
> we are searching for a hardware based DSP solution for use
> with Asterisk based on PCI or MiniPCI to reduce main processor
> load and to use embedded boards with Digium E1/T1 cards like
> TE410P.
>
> does anyone know about any manufactorer of those cards or someone
> who is able to develop/build such cards?
>
> Specifications:
> PCI or MiniPCI
> up to 120 concurrent transcodings
> Codecs: G.729/G.729A or G.723.1 or GSM or combinations of them
I would imagine that this would not solve any problems - the extra overhead of 
piping the data over the PCI bus would very quickly negate any speed gains of 
the DSP over the native Intel FPU. Additionally you would probably introduce 
extra latency. I did quite a lot of work on DSP co-processor boards and there 
was always a considerable startup time when all the data pipes had to be 
filled.

A better solution would be to use a Dual Xeon machine - port just the 
transcoding code to a standalone app that reads/write from a pipe and set up 
linux  to only run this code on one of the processors. Modify the asterisk 
transcoding interface to 'callout' to this app and you are done. Data is
transferred via the memory (and not by the PCI bus).

Also there is a Via epia motherboard with a built-in MPEG chip that may also 
do this kind of job...

Paul Hewlett
>
> Thank you in advance,
> Roland Zagler
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