Modernising 1001.tv’s Streaming Platform for National Scale
Rebuilding live and on-demand delivery with a cloud-native media architecture, delivered by CloudMates
When a national streaming platform prepares to onboard millions of new viewers, the margin for error disappears.
For 1001.tv, one of the Middle East’s fastest-growing digital media platforms with a strong footprint in Iraq and premium sports content including La Liga, growth exposed hard limits in its existing media stack. Live stream instability, opaque infrastructure, restricted flexibility, and long-term vendor lock-in created material risk at a time when scale, reliability, and control were non-negotiable.
CloudMates partnered with 1001.tv to fully re-architect its live and VOD media platform, delivering a broadcast-grade, cloud-native solution that eliminated lock-in, restored operational visibility, and positioned the business for sustained growth.
This engagement was not a lift-and-shift. It was a deliberate platform transformation, designed to future-proof the business.
Challenge : Scaling under pressure, with no room for failure
1001.tv faced a convergence of business and technical constraints:
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A rapidly expanding user base, with millions of new subscribers scheduled to onboard
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Premium live sports content demanding zero tolerance for latency, packet loss, or downtime
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A large VOD catalogue of ~40,000 master assets (~21 TB) locked inside a proprietary ecosystem
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Limited ability to customize workflows or build differentiated viewer experiences
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Minimal visibility into live and on-demand delivery pipelines
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Contractual deadlines and exit constraints tied to the existing platform
The core issue was not cost alone. It was control, resilience, and long-term ownership of media assets.
Strategy : Replace the black box with a transparent, composable media platform
CloudMates worked with 1001.tv to define a clear architectural principle:
Every component must be observable, replaceable, and owned by the platform.
Rather than replicating the existing system, the team designed a component-based media architecture, replacing proprietary abstractions with purpose-built services across live streaming, VOD processing, content protection, and global delivery.
The result was a fully API-driven, cloud-native media backbone, capable of supporting both current scale and future innovation.
Live Streaming
Live contribution and distribution were rebuilt for reliability and low latency:
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Broadcast-grade ingest ensuring resilient transport of live feeds
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Redundant real-time encoding pipelines across multiple availability zones
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Just-in-time packaging for modern streaming formats
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Global low-latency delivery through edge caching
This architecture eliminated packet loss issues and restored confidence in live event delivery.
Video-on-Demand Transformation
The legacy VOD system was replaced with a scalable, automated pipeline:
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Secure object storage for all master and output assets
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Large-scale transcoding of the entire content library into adaptive bitrate formats
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Unified packaging for multi-device playback
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Direct ownership of all transcoded outputs
For the first time, 1001.tv fully owned its VOD assets, free from platform lock-in.
Solution :A broadcast-grade media architecture built for scale and ownership
The delivered platform spans the full media lifecycle:
Content Protection
Premium content security was embedded directly into the workflow:
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Multi-DRM support across Android, iOS, web, and smart TVs
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Standards-based key exchange with external DRM providers
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Consistent enforcement across live and on-demand content
This ensured studio-grade content protection without compromising scalability.
Advanced Viewer Capabilities
The platform unlocked features previously difficult or impossible to implement:
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Time-shifted viewing with restart, rewind, and pause for live events
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Instant live-to-VOD publishing without redundant processing
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Faster replay availability for sports and live programming
These capabilities improved user experience while reducing operational overhead.
Migration : Zero-downtime, phased, and production-safe
The migration was delivered through a structured, parallel execution model designed to protect the live audience experience at every stage. CloudMates began with a deep audit of existing live and video-on-demand workflows, followed by a precise one-to-one mapping of legacy platform capabilities to the new cloud-native architecture. Live streaming and VOD migration streams were executed in parallel to accelerate delivery while maintaining operational stability. Extensive multi-device testing and DRM validation were conducted to ensure consistent playback across platforms. Traffic was then transitioned through a phased cutover approach, allowing the platform to move to the new architecture without disruption. At no point during the migration was the viewer experience compromised.
Outcome : A platform ready for millions, built for the long term
The delivered solution positioned 1001.tv to scale with confidence as subscriber demand continues to grow. By removing vendor lock-in and establishing full ownership of transcoded media assets, the platform gained long-term flexibility across content delivery and future distribution strategies. Broadcast-grade reliability was restored for live streaming, supported by deep visibility into performance, delivery metrics, and cost drivers across the media workflow. The new architecture also enabled the introduction of advanced capabilities without requiring rework of core systems, allowing the platform to evolve alongside content and audience needs. Operating on a flexible, consumption-based model, 1001.tv now benefits from cost structures that scale in line with growth. Most importantly, the platform transitioned from a constrained service dependency into a strategic business asset capable of supporting long-term expansion and innovation.
CloudMates’ work with 1001.tv highlights the importance of treating media platforms as long-term business assets rather than bundled services. Through its Media & Entertainment solutions, CloudMates supports broadcasters and streaming platforms across live streaming, VOD transformation, content security, and audience experience modernisation. This approach enables media organisations to scale with confidence, reduce operational risk, and build platforms that evolve with their content and audience strategies.