An IP origination point and method to determine transcoding in packet communications are provided. The IP origination point in one example embodiment includes a communication interface configured to exchange packet communications with a media transport path, a storage system configured to store an origination communication, payload data for the origination communication, integrity information for the origination communication that is configured to be modified by one or more transcoding operations, and returned integrity information that may have been modified by the one or more transcoding operations. A processing system generates and transmits the origination communication into the media transport path, compares the returned integrity information to the integrity information, and determines a transcoding level of transcoding that occurred in the media transport path if the returned integrity information is not equal to the sent integrity information.