You route data between sources by forming connections between media components. Media ports are used to transfer data over the connections. To avoid conflicts, you use surrogates for the ports when you connect components. A media component must have at least one input or output port. Media ports have the following characteristics:
- Data flows in only one direction.
- Only one kind of data can flow through a port (for example, audio or video).
- More than one output port can connect to a single input port (fan-in).
- One output port can connect to more than one input port (fan-out).
NOTE 
Not all types of ports support fan-in and fan-out. For example, audio ports do not support either. Exactly how fan-in and fan-out properties are handled is up to the media-specific port classes.
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