The DME can be configured to receive or pull from an encoder, a Flash server, a video conferencing device, or another DME; it can also serve streams or push streams to an RTMP server, an RTP server, or to another DME.

The DME supports unicast and/or multicast for both input and output.

Unicast streams typically have one source and one destination; most network traffic between clients and servers is unicast.

Multicast packets have a single source and multiple destinations. Instead of sending out individual unicast packets to each client, a single stream of multicast packets can be viewed by multiple clients. This can save substantial network bandwidth when multiple clients are accessing the same stream.