ReelVault: launching a regional-language streaming service that holds up on premiere night
A regional film producer with a library of hundreds of films and a slate of originals wanted its own streaming service instead of licensing everything to large platforms. We built ReelVault: apps for phones and TVs, adaptive streaming that works on weak networks, subscriptions with UPI Autopay, DRM and a content operations console — 25 features built to survive the traffic spike of a big release.
Why a producer wanted its own platform
ReelVault's founder had spent years licensing his studio's films to large streaming platforms. The deals paid, but the films disappeared into giant catalogues, audiences never knew who made them, and the studio had no data about who was watching. With a slate of originals coming, he wanted a direct relationship with his audience — Malayalam speakers in Kerala, across India and in the Gulf.
His worry was the premiere. A popular release could bring a surge of sign-ups in a single evening, and a platform that crashed on its first big night would never recover its reputation.
“We can make a film people queue for. I need a platform that doesn't fall over when they do.”
Understanding the audience
We surveyed the studio's social media followers and interviewed viewers in Kerala and the Gulf. Mobile was dominant in India, TV in the Gulf. Many viewers in smaller towns watched on patchy mobile data and wanted downloads for travel. Payment preferences differed too: UPI in India, cards abroad.
Viewers were loyal to Malayalam cinema but frustrated by poor subtitles and hard-to-find classics on big platforms. ReelVault's promise became simple: every film from the studio, properly restored, subtitled and easy to find.
Engineering for premiere night
Streaming reliability comes down to three things: encoding for every network, delivering from the edge, and making sure sign-ups and payments do not become the bottleneck. Every title is encoded into an adaptive ladder, from very low bitrates for weak mobile data to high quality for TVs. Video is delivered through a CDN with an origin shield, so a surge of viewers hits cached segments, not our servers.
We load-tested the full journey — sign-up, payment, first play — at many times the expected premiere traffic, and pre-warmed caches for launch titles. On the night, the platform handled its biggest spike without incident.
The team
Video and infrastructure were the riskiest areas, so a DevOps engineer with streaming experience led the platform work from the start.
Launch planning and premiere readiness.
Phone, TV and web viewing experiences.
React Native apps and TV apps.
Web player and content console.
Subscriptions, entitlements and catalogue APIs.
Encoding pipeline, CDN, DRM and load testing.
Recommendations and viewing analytics.
8 people in total, working as one team.
Decisions we made
Each decision balanced cost against reliability and viewer experience.
Build a streaming stack or use a white-label OTT?
- White-label OTT product
- Custom apps on managed video infrastructure
Our call: Custom apps on managed video infrastructure. White-label products limited branding, data ownership and regional features. Custom apps on managed encoding and CDN gave control without reinventing video delivery.
How to handle premiere traffic?
- Scale servers on the night
- Edge caching, pre-warming and load tests at many times expected traffic
Our call: Edge caching, pre-warming and load tests at many times expected traffic. Reactive scaling is too slow for a spike that happens in minutes. Caching and rehearsal made the premiere uneventful.
Downloads for offline viewing?
- Streaming only
- DRM-protected downloads
Our call: DRM-protected downloads. Viewers on weak data and travellers wanted downloads. DRM kept the content protected on device.
Subscription payments?
- Cards only
- UPI Autopay in India, cards abroad
Our call: UPI Autopay in India, cards abroad. Matching local payment habits reduced drop-off at the most important step.
The 25 features
Everything that shipped for viewers and the content team.
- 01Adaptive streaming
Quality adjusts smoothly to network speed.
- 02Offline downloads
DRM-protected downloads for later viewing.
- 03TV apps
Android TV and Fire TV apps with remote-friendly navigation.
- 04Continue watching
Resume across devices.
- 05Multi-language subtitles
Malayalam, English and Arabic subtitles.
- 06Profiles and kids mode
Separate profiles with parental controls.
- 07Personalised rows
Recommendations based on viewing history.
- 08Search in Malayalam and English
Search by title, actor or director.
- 09Collections
Curated collections of classics and genres.
- 10Premiere countdowns
Countdown and reminders for new releases.
- 11Plans and pricing
Monthly and yearly plans by region.
- 12UPI Autopay and cards
Local payment methods by country.
- 13Free trial and offers
Trials and promotional codes.
- 14Device limits
Concurrent stream limits per plan.
- 15Encoding pipeline
Automatic encoding into adaptive ladders.
- 16Multi-DRM
Content protection across devices.
- 17Rights windows
Availability by territory and date.
- 18Release scheduling
Timed premieres and catalogue updates.
- 19Metadata management
Titles, cast, artwork and subtitles.
- 20CDN with origin shield
Edge delivery that absorbs traffic spikes.
- 21Viewing analytics
Plays, completion and drop-off by title.
- 22Playback monitoring
Buffering and error rates by device and network.
- 23Role-based access
Permissions for content, marketing and finance.
- 24Revenue dashboard
Subscribers, churn and revenue by region.
- 25Customer support tools
Account, subscription and device management.
Launch
ReelVault launched with the studio's back catalogue and one original, released at a fixed premiere time with a countdown in the app. Pre-registration built an audience in advance, and the premiere became the platform's first big night — exactly as planned.
- Weeks 1–3Discovery
Audience research in Kerala and the Gulf; catalogue audit.
- Weeks 4–6Design
Phone, TV and web experiences prototyped.
- Weeks 7–16Build
Apps, encoding pipeline, DRM, subscriptions and console.
- Weeks 17–20Load testing
Full journeys tested at many times expected traffic.
- Weeks 21–22Premiere launch
Catalogue plus one original at a fixed premiere time.
What we learned
Test the whole journey, not just the video. Sign-up and payment are as likely to fail under load as streaming.
Regional audiences reward care. Good subtitles, restored classics and downloads mattered more to viewers than flashy features.
- React Native
- Next.js
- Node.js
- PostgreSQL
- HLS/DASH adaptive streaming
- Multi-DRM
- CDN with origin shield
- Recommendation model
- AWS
