Built from scratch: a short-form reels engine powering the flagship OTT platform of Jazz, Pakistan's largest telecom operator.
There was no existing reels infrastructure on the platform. I had to architect the entire feature from scratch: data models, video delivery pipeline, admin tooling, and frontend experience, with no internal reference and under production timelines.
Reels had to feel native: instant vertical swipe, negligible buffering, quality adaptation based on network. The videos needed to be converted to HLS (.m3u8) with multi-resolution support (480p to 720p), streamed from Huawei OBS via CDN URLs, and loaded efficiently in a Blade-based frontend without a React/JS-heavy setup.
The same FastAPI endpoints had to serve both the web (Laravel/Blade) and the mobile app. This meant designing clean, well-structured API contracts that the mobile development team could consume independently, with no coupling to the web layer's rendering logic.
Reel ingestion, metadata storage, view tracking, and feed delivery built in FastAPI with MySQL as the persistence layer, storing and serving Huawei OBS CDN URLs for every reel.
All reel videos transcoded to .m3u8 with adaptive bitrate (480p to 720p), enabling smooth playback and reduced buffering across varying network conditions.
Laravel/Blade frontend with optimized preloading: the next reel begins loading before the current one ends, achieving near-zero perceived wait time on scroll.
Performance tracking baked into the API layer, giving the content team per-reel visibility tied to shows and series launches.
Laravel-based admin panel allowing the content team to upload reels, associate them with shows, and manage the growing library.
A single set of FastAPI endpoints designed to serve both the Laravel web layer and the mobile app: clean separation, no duplication, independently consumable by the mobile team.
1,000+ reels uploaded and live across platform originals and show launches.
Millions of collective views across the reels catalog, ongoing as new content ships.
Negligible scroll-to-next load time achieved via HLS streaming, CDN delivery, and preload logic.
Adaptive quality from 480p to 720p via .m3u8, handles varying network conditions gracefully.
Single API layer serving both web and mobile consumers: zero duplication, clean separation.
Feature is live in production and actively used with every new series and show launch on Deikho.