All Products
Search
Document Center

Intelligent Media Services:Overview

Last Updated:Jun 03, 2025

Intelligent Media Services (IMS) provides the MediaConnect service for video transport.

Service introduction

MediaConnect ingests a live stream into Alibaba Cloud and distributes it to multiple destinations across different regions.

Important

You are charged fees for using MediaConnect. For pricing information, see Billing of MediaConnect.

image
  • For ingest, you send live streams to MediaConnect to upload the live content to Alibaba Cloud.

  • For distribution, MediaConnect sends the ingested live content to multiple outputs in different geographical locations.

Concepts

  • Flow

    A flow is a core component of MediaConnect. It defines the live video transport between a source and one or more destinations.

  • Source

    A source is an input ingested to a MediaConnect flow. RTMP and SRT streams are supported. You can also use the output of another flow as a source.

  • Output

    An output is a destination where you want MediaConnect to send the ingested live content. It must have the same protocol as the source. You can also send the live content to another MediaConnect flow.

Reference

To learn how to use MediaConnect, see Get started with MediaConnect.