# Tasks

To create a configuration for processing media, you must define tasks, which are individual operations that Media Server can perform.

- Ingest tasks bring media into Media Server so that it can be processed. Ingestion splits the data contained in a file or stream, for example video is split into images (video frames), audio, and metadata. A configuration must contain exactly one ingest task.
- Encoding tasks make a copy of ingested media, or encode it into different formats. A configuration can contain any number of encoding tasks.
- Analysis tasks run analysis on ingested media, and produce metadata that describes the content of the media. A configuration can contain any number of analysis tasks.
- Event stream processing (ESP) tasks introduce additional custom logic into media analysis. For example, you can filter or deduplicate the information produced during analysis. A configuration can contain any number of ESP tasks.
- Transform tasks transform the data produced by other tasks (and might modify its schema). For example, you can change the size of video frames before sending them to the image encoder. A configuration can contain any number of transformation tasks.
- Output tasks send the data produced by Media Server to other systems. A configuration can contain any number of output tasks.

In a complete configuration, tasks that you define are connected. The output of an ingest task becomes the input for an analysis or encoding task. The output of an analysis task might become the input for an encoding, ESP, or output task. You can connect tasks in many different ways, which allows Media Server to be used to meet many different use cases.

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