Overview of Media Flow
The Oracle Cloud Infrastructure (OCI) Media Services is a fully managed service for processing media (video) source content. It provides scalable distribution and origination for just-in-time packaged Adaptive Bitrate (ABR) video content. The OCI Media Services includes OCI Media Flow and OCI Media Streams. The services can be used independently or together and operate on the content stored in the OCI Object Store.
OCI Media Flow enables you to configure content processing workflows that can be used to process video source content. The processing includes transcoding, transcribing, thumbnail generation, ABR packaging, and integration with OCI AI Services such as Speech (for automatic transcription), Language (for Natural Language Processing (NLP) based analysis of the transcript), and Vision (for object detection and text extraction).
Media Flow uses the Object Storage bucket in the OCI Object Storage service as the input source and performs the specified transcoding operations to create the ABR package in your object storage bucket. You can deliver the output from OCI Media Flow as streamed Video on Demand (VOD) using OCI Media Streams.
Here is an overview of a typical end-to-end VOD streaming solution built on OCI. The following diagram shows how OCI Media Flow and OCI Media Streams are integrated. 
Key Capabilities
Use OCI Media Flow to transcode video into various output formats that are suitable for streaming videos on-demand for multiple device types and resolutions. Media Flow simplifies the process for creating streaming formats from source content and enables you to manage a complex video processing infrastructure. You can also generate thumbnails for the transcoded videos.
Media Flow enables you to integrate with other OCI AI Services such as Speech, Language, and Vision. When a media workflow includes one of these tasks, OCI Media Flow automatically sends the required data to the AI Services and collects the results.
OCI Media Flow includes packaging features for target format conversion and video segmentation for ABR streams. You can ingest the transcoded content directly into Media Streams or stream it separately.
Media Flow Concepts
Some of the key concepts and terms used in OCI Media Flow are as follows:
- Media Workflow: A user-defined workflow for processing media content. Media workflow includes multiple media workflow tasks that define the processing tasks to be performed.
- System Workflow: Predefined media workflows that you can use.
- Media Workflow Task: Defines the processing to be performed at a specific point in the workflow based on their type.
- Media Flow Job: Jobs are used to run content through a workflow. You can define multiple media workflows and use the workflows to create multiple jobs.
Accessing Media Flow
You can access OCI Media Flow by using the Console (a browser-based interface), Oracle Cloud Infrastructure CLI, or REST APIs.
Use any of the following options, based on your preference and its suitability for the task you want to complete:
- The Oracle Cloud Console is an easy-to-use, browser-based interface. To access the Console, you must use one of the following supported browsers:
- Google Chrome 69 or later
- Firefox 62 or later
- Safari 12.1 or later
When you sign in to the Console, you are prompted to enter your cloud tenant, your user name, and your password.
For information, see supported browser and Security Credentials.
Note
Avoid entering confidential information when assigning descriptions, tags, or friendly names to your cloud resources through the Console, API, or CLI. - To use the OCI CLI or REST APIs, you can set up your environment, or use Oracle Cloud Infrastructure
Cloud Shell.
- To use the CLI or REST APIs in Cloud Shell, sign in to the Console. See Using Cloud Shell and the Command Line Reference.
- To install the OCI CLI in your environment, follow the steps in the Install CLI quick start. For a list of available SDKs, see SDKs and the CLI. See also an overview of the CLI.
- When using REST APIs, see the REST API documentation and API Reference and Endpoints.
While performing an action if you get any issues related to permission or authorization, then contact your administrator to check the type of access.
To get started with the OCI Media Flow, see Getting Started with Media Flow.
Authentication and Authorization
Each service in OCI integrates with IAM for authentication and authorization, for all interfaces (the Console, SDK or CLI, and REST API).
An administrator in your company needs to set up groups, compartments , and policies that control who can access different services and resources, and the type of their access. For example, the policies control who can create users, create and manage the cloud network, create instances, create buckets, and download objects.
- If you are a new administrator, see Getting Started with Policies.
- For details about writing policies for OCI Media Flow, see IAM Policies.
- For details about writing policies for other services, see Policy Reference.
If you’re a regular user (not an administrator) who needs to use the OCI resources that your company owns, contact your administrator to set up a user ID for you. The administrator can confirm which compartment or compartments you must be using.
Resource Identifiers
Media Flow resources, similar to most types of resources in OCI, have an Oracle Cloud ID (OCID), which is an Oracle-assigned, unique identifier.
For information about the OCID format and other ways to identify your resources, see Resource Identifiers.
Regions and Availability Domains
A region is a localized geographic area, and an availability domain is one or more data centers located within a region.
Regions and availability domains indicate the physical and logical organization of your Media Flow resources.
Media Flow is available in all the Oracle Cloud Infrastructure commercial regions. See About Regions and Availability Domains for the list of available regions for Oracle Cloud Infrastructure, associated locations, region identifiers, region keys, and availability domains.
Limits
Know the Media Flow service limits for your region.
A service limit is the quota or allowance set on a resource.
Media Flow limits you to 2,000 media workflows per tenant. However, this limit does not impact the number of jobs that you can run.
There is no limit on the input file size or the number of jobs that can be submitted. However, your throughput will vary based on the available resources and level of activity in your region. At least five jobs can be processed concurrently, and your jobs are queued in a first-in, first-out sequence.
Integrated Services
Media Flow is integrated with various services and features.
Identity and Access Management
Media Flow integrates with Oracle Cloud Infrastructure Identity and Access Management (IAM) for authentication and authorization, for all interfaces (the Console, SDK, CLI, and REST API).
See Authentication and Authorization for details.
Common policies can be created to authorize Media Flow users. You can also create IAM Policies to control user access to Media Flow.
Events
Media Flow is integrated with the Events service. See Media Flow Events.
Search
The OCI
Search service lets you find resources in your tenancy without requiring you to navigate through different services and compartments. You can search for the media workflow resource type in your search queries.
See Search for details.
Vision
The OCI Vision service enables you to upload images to detect and classify objects in them. Media Flow integrates with the Vision service for object detection and text extraction.
Language
The OCI Language service lets you automate sophisticated text analysis at scale without any machine learning expertise. Media Flow integrates with the Language service for NLP-based analysis of the transcripts.
Speech
The OCI Speech service lets you convert audio files to readable text that is stored in JSON and SubRip Subtitle (SRT) formats. Media Flow integrates with the Speech service for automatic transcription.