Cinestock: a regional stock-footage marketplace for the Middle East, North Africa, and South Asia
A two-sided stock-footage platform — "Shutterstock for film" — that onboards regional creators, ingests high-resolution video, and serves watermarked previews to buyers. Launched with 50+ contributors in the beta.
Company Background
A two-sided stock-footage platform — "Shutterstock for film" — that onboards regional creators, ingests high-resolution video, and serves watermarked previews to buyers. Launched with 50+ contributors in the beta.
Existing stock footage platforms under-represented the Middle East, North Africa, and Indian subcontinent, leaving filmmakers in the region without accessible, affordable, authentic content. Building the platform meant handling very large camera-native files, transcoding them into consumable formats, watermarking for protection, and serving multi-format downloads at scale.
Link to ProjectEngagement
Existing stock footage platforms under-represented the Middle East, North Africa, and Indian subcontinent, leaving filmmakers in the region without accessible, affordable, authentic content. Building the platform meant handling very large camera-native files, transcoding them into consumable formats, watermarking for protection, and serving multi-format downloads at scale.
How we approach this project
We designed a microservices backend for heavy video processing (transcoding, encoding, watermarking) paired with two web portals: an end-user portal for browsing and downloading watermarked previews, and a contributor portal for creator onboarding, quality review, uploads, and payouts. A secure payment layer handles buyer collection, marketplace disbursement, and notifications.
The challenge
Cinestock set out to be the Shutterstock equivalent for film in regions that existing stock libraries had long under-served. The technical problem was substantial: camera-native footage is large and unwieldy, and a marketplace needs to serve fast previews without compromising the master files. Protecting creator IP meant watermarking. Serving a global buyer base meant multi-format downloads.
What we built
- Microservices backend. Isolated services for transcoding, encoding, and watermarking kept heavy video work off the request path and allowed us to scale each stage independently.
- Buyer portal. Browsing, previewing, and purchasing watermarked footage with multi-format download support.
- Contributor portal. Creator sign-up, quality approval workflow, upload tooling, and payout management.
- Payment layer. Buyer collection, marketplace disbursement, and transactional notifications.
The outcome
Cinestock is live with a beta partner program. Fifty-plus regional creators have been onboarded and are actively uploading, establishing the platform as the destination for authentic stock content from the Middle East, North Africa, and the Indian subcontinent.
What changed for Cinestock
The platform is live with a beta partner program in place. 50+ local creators have been onboarded and are actively contributing footage, positioning Cinestock as the go-to marketplace for authentic regional stock content.
- 01Media
- 02Marketplace
- 03Video Processing
- 04Microservices
- 50+
- Creators onboarded
- 2
- Portals shipped
- Live
- Beta status
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