Tuning

Flashphoner works in complex environment. This is a tuning guide, which helps you to adjust quality and performance in your environment.
Here SERVER_HOME=/usr/local/WowzaMediaServer

Backup before tuning

[security]

Backup SERVER_HOME dir before tuning
You can restore you default parameters in this case.

Use x86_64 architecture in production environment

[quality, performance, memory]
Use 64-bit system if it is possible.

System timer precision

[quality]

Use highest available system timer on Linux. We have tested our system with such kernel parameters:

HZ=1000

High Resolution Timer=y

How to configure kernel

Example for Kernel: 2.6.38.3, System: CentOS 5.5, Centos 5.6:

General Setup -> enable deprecated sysfs features to support old....
General Setup -> enable deprecated sysfs features by dafault
Processor type and features -> High Resolution Timer Support
Processor type and features -> Timer frequency (1000 HZ)
./include/asm-generic/param.h (USER_HZ 1000 and HZ 1000)

Default system timer precision for some systems

x86_64 system architecture used in table below:

red - requires the kernel configuring

green - does not require the kernel configuring

How to check current system-timer precision

Download the timing-tool and start timing.sh

You will get such results:

Timing has been initialized: 16005672
Timer precision(float) = 3.994328 ms

It means, your timer precision is about 4ms(HZ=250).
When your system HZ value is 1000 and High Resolution Timer Support is enabled, you result must be less than 0.1ms(0.03ms, 0.04ms, 0.05ms e.t.c).

Enable thread priorities mapping

[quality, memory]

Configure setenv.sh as described here: http://www.wowzamedia.com/forums/content.php?5-general-tuning [5,6,13]

Add line:

JAVA_OPTS="$JAVA_OPTS -server -XX:+UseThreadPriorities -XX:ThreadPriorityPolicy=1"

after

JAVA_OPTS="-Xmx1200M"

So, your config should look like this:

...
JAVA_OPTS="-Xmx1200M"
JAVA_OPTS="$JAVA_OPTS -server -XX:+UseThreadPriorities -XX:ThreadPriorityPolicy=1"
...

Thread priorities may impact on quality of audio-video conversation.
This settings gives Flashphoner permissions to set priority for internal threads.

Start Wowza server as root

[quality]

If java process started as non-root user, Linux does not use thread priority mapping.
You can avoid starting the server as root. See this workaround:  http://www.akshaal.info/2008/04/javas-thread-priorities-in-linux.html
Also, look latest JVM documentation here: http://www.oracle.com/technetwork/java/javase/downloads/index.html

Set TcpNoDelay and QoS lowlatency for RTMP

[quality, performance]

Set TcpNoDelay and QoS lowlatency for RTMP sockets.
Configure VHost.xml file as described on this page http://www.wowzamedia.com/forums/content.php?5-general-tuning [7,11]

Uncomment:

<TcpNoDelay>true</TcpNoDelay>

<TrafficClass>16</TrafficClass>

We believe, this socket configuration may impact on latency in some cases.

Set QoS lowlatency for RTP

[quality]

rtp_traffic_class=16

Configure outgoing RTMP stream

[quality]

<Name>rtmp2voip</Name>
    <Description>RTMP2Voip</Description>
    <ClassBase>com.flashphoner.app.MyRtmp2VoipStream</ClassBase>
    <ClassPlay>com.wowza.wms.stream.live.MediaStreamLivePlay</ClassPlay>
    <Properties>
        <Property>
            <Name>maxliveaudiolatency</Name>
            <Value>500</Value>
        </Property>
        <Property>
            <Name>instantOn</Name>
            <Value>false</Value>
            <Type>Boolean</Type>
        </Property>
        <Property>
            <Name>flushInterval</Name>
            <Value>20</Value>
            <Type>Integer</Type>
        </Property>
        <Property>
            <Name>onFlushNotifyClients</Name>
            <Value>true</Value>
            <Type>Boolean</Type>
        </Property>
        <Property>
            <Name>disableLowBandwidthThrottling</Name>
            <Value>false</Value>
            <Type>Boolean</Type>
        </Property>
        <Property>
            <Name>behindDropDFrames</Name>
            <Value>3000</Value>
            <Type>Integer</Type>
        </Property>
        <Property>
            <Name>behindDropPFrames</Name>
            <Value>3000</Value>
            <Type>Integer</Type>
        </Property>
        <Property>
            <Name>behindDropKFrames</Name>
            <Value>3000</Value>
            <Type>Integer</Type>
        </Property>
        <Property>
            <Name>behindDropAudio</Name>
            <Value>500</Value>
            <Type>Integer</Type>
        </Property>
    </Properties>
</Stream>

Configure incoming RTMP stream

[quality]

<Stream>
                        <Name>live</Name>
                        <Description>Live Video</Description>
                        <ClassBase>com.wowza.wms.stream.live.MediaStreamLive</ClassBase>
                        <ClassPlay>com.wowza.wms.stream.live.MediaStreamLivePlay</ClassPlay>
                        <Properties>
                                <Property>
                                        <Name>maxliveaudiolatency</Name>
                                        <Value>500</Value>
                                </Property>
                                <Property>
                                        <Name>instantOn</Name>
                                        <Value>false</Value>
                                        <Type>Boolean</Type>
                                </Property>
                                <Property>
                                        <Name>flushInterval</Name>
                                        <Value>20</Value>
                                        <Type>Integer</Type>
                                </Property>
                                <Property>
                                        <Name>onFlushNotifyClients</Name>
                                        <Value>true</Value>
                                        <Type>Boolean</Type>
                                </Property>
                                <Property>
                                        <Name>disableLowBandwidthThrottling</Name>
                                        <Value>false</Value>
                                        <Type>Boolean</Type>
                                </Property>
                                <Property>
                                        <Name>behindDropDFrames</Name>
                                        <Value>1500</Value>
                                        <Type>Integer</Type>
                                </Property>
                                <Property>
                                        <Name>behindDropPFrames</Name>
                                        <Value>3000</Value>
                                        <Type>Integer</Type>
                                </Property>
                                <Property>
                                        <Name>behindDropKFrames</Name>
                                        <Value>6000</Value>
                                        <Type>Integer</Type>
                                </Property>
                                <Property>
                                        <Name>behindDropAudio</Name>
                                        <Value>500</Value>
                                        <Type>Integer</Type>
                                </Property>
                                <Property>
                                        <Name>isLive</Name>
                                        <Value>true</Value>
                                        <Type>Boolean</Type>
                                </Property>
                        </Properties>
                </Stream>

Configure quality - latency balance

[quality]

Flashphoner use buffering of incoming and outgoing stream to adjust quality and drop packets if latency is too big.

SERVER_HOME/conf/flashphoner.properties

Note, system timer precision tuning is mandatory for using this options.
Jitter buffer is a thread which flush audio packets every 20ms, using system timer.
If your system timer is not configured properly, you may get worse or unacceptable quality, using the jitter buffer.

Configure jitter buffer on VoIP server or SIP endpoint

[quality]
Jitter buffer may reduce voice chopping and give smoothly conversation.
If you have problems with voice quality, you may setup jitter buffer for your VoIP server, if VoIP server located in your environment of course.
Example of configuring jitter buffer for Asterisk 1.6

jbenable=yes
jbforce=yes
jbmaxsize=200
jbimpl=fixed

This example uses fixed implementation of jitter buffer with 200 milliseconds size.
Please, consult with your VoIP server documentation to configure jitter buffer properly.

Speex voice quality tuning

[quality]

Flashphoner uses speex codec for RTMP downstreams and RTMP upstreams.

Downstream is a stream from Flash-Server to Flash-client

Some quotes from speex documentation:

Quality (variable)
Speex is a lossy codec, which means that it achives compression at the expense of fidelity of the input speech signal. Unlike
some other speech codecs, it is possible to control the tradeoff made between quality and bit-rate. The Speex encoding process
is controlled most of the time by a quality parameter that ranges from 0 to 10. In constant bit-rate (CBR) operation, the quality
parameter is an integer, while for variable bit-rate (VBR), the parameter is a float.

Complexity (variable)
With Speex, it is possible to vary the complexity allowed for the encoder. This is done by controlling how the search is
performed with an integer ranging from 1 to 10 in a way that's similar to the -1 to -9 options to gzip and bzip2 compression
utilities. For normal use, the noise level at complexity 1 is between 1 and 2 dB higher than at complexity 10, but the CPU
requirements for complexity 10 is about 5 times higher than for complexity 1. In practice, the best trade-off is between
complexity 2 and 4, though higher settings are often useful when encoding non-speech sounds like DTMF tones.

Variable Bit-Rate (VBR)
Variable bit-rate (VBR) allows a codec to change its bit-rate dynamically to adapt to the "difficulty" of the audio being
encoded. In the example of Speex, sounds like vowels and high-energy transients require a higher bit-rate to achieve good
quality, while fricatives (e.g. s,f sounds) can be coded adequately with less bits. For this reason, VBR can achive lower bit-rate
for the same quality, or a better quality for a certain bit-rate. Despite its advantages, VBR has two main drawbacks: first, by
only specifying quality, there's no guaranty about the final average bit-rate. Second, for some real-time applications like voice
over IP (VoIP), what counts is the maximum bit-rate, which must be low enough for the communication channel.

Since patch Flashphoner-1.0.3.512-p.760 you able to configure policy for the downstream on server-side. See table below:

Default policy is "good".

Usage:

Edit server-side flashphoner.properties file:

speex_in_policy = normal

or

speex_in_policy = good

or

speex_in_policy = best

or

speex_in_policy = ultimate

You can use custom policy too:

speex_in_policy = 10,false,10,2

Higher policies like ultimate policy may increase CPU usage and cause the latency grow. But it gives higher sound quality

Upstream is a stream from Flash-client to Flash-Server

Use

mic.encodeQuality = 6;

in client-side SoundControl.as

Yasm video optimization

Since Flashphoner-1.0.4.791, Yasm is included in Flashphoner installation package. You do not need to install yasm, if you use Flashphoner-1.0.4.791 version or above.

It may optimize video encoding to decrease CPU usage and increase performance.

Get yasm. Yasm is a modular assembler that will optimize video encoding for MMX/SSE.

You can download yasm here

Use simple magic to install it:

./cofigure
./make
./make install

You should install yasm BEFORE you install Flashphoner

If the Flashphoner has already installed, you need to do 3 steps:

• Uninstall Flashphoner
• Install yasm
• Install Flashphoner