How important are trailers?
Pretty important.
Well, very important.
The TV, movie, and video game industries all depend on trailers. Trailers pique people’s interest. Trailers get people talking. Trailers get bodies in seats and eyes on screens. Trailers drive sales.
And who doesn’t love a good trailer? You get entertained without having to commit to a whole show, movie, or game. And you’re licensed to pass judgment, good or bad. A very good trailer ends with you saying “I’m going to watch that.” Or “I’d definitely play that.”
How do trailers reach your screen?
Carefully.
After trailers are created, Fabric Data takes over. Fabric is the company that encodes and delivers the trailers, on behalf of big TV and movie studios, distributors, producers, and broadcasters. Audiences around the world watch the trailers as they pop up on their devices.
Goal: pay back with playback
How’d Fabric get to where it stands today, as the global leader in delivering trailers?
Let’s go back to 2012.
At the time Fabric wanted to offer the largest movie, TV, and game trailer service for B2B (business-to-business) use. So Fabric needed a tech partner that could guarantee that Fabric’s service would give Fabric’s clients dependable video playback.
And by dependable video playback, Fabric meant dependable video playback for every screen. And by every screen, Fabric meant every kind of screen.
Which streaming tech partner could give Fabric such reliability and versatility?
Not surprisingly, the partner for Fabric was, and is, Unified Streaming.
In 2012 the Amsterdam-based streaming software specialist, and its products’ agility and adaptability, caught the attention of Fabric. In fact, Fabric was one of Unified’s first customers. Things worked out well then. And ever since that time, Fabric has stuck with Unified Streaming.
Why? Why’d things work out initially? And why do they continue to work out?
The short answer: Fabric has demands that Unified Streaming meets. Pure and simple.
Encoding over 1500 videos every month, Fabric needs a simple way to deliver the encoded videos back to their customers in a timely manner. When there’s a hot new trailer that Fabric’s clients want to display, speediness is critical.
Unified Streaming provided a way to simplify Fabric’s encoding process, and make the content available to Fabric’s clients, quickly.
A source at Fabric said, “We made the decision to go with Unified when they started in 2012 since they solved a very real need for us. And we have stayed with them because they continue to do so.”
Getting back to the need for versatility, Fabric’s clients play back the videos from Fabric’s service on all sorts of screens.
By adding Unified Streaming into their workflows, Fabric is able to offer their clients adaptive formats, like HLS, which has become popular with customers. Unified Streaming easily repackages Fabric’s MP4 video files into HLS and other formats that Fabric offers.
Origin forms the core
Unified Origin and Unified Packager from Unified Streaming form the core of the tech infrastructure that powers Fabric’s video streaming delivery system. Unified Origin went into service first, then Fabric branched out and paired Origin with Packager.
When asked if there were any particular things about Unified Origin they found cool and interesting, a Fabric engineer said it is Origin’s “impressive API to alter playlists.”
Happily ever after
Fabric deals in delight.
The company helps consumers find the content they want to see, on a global scale. Leveraging trailers, images, metadata, and streaming links, Fabric’s clients increase the rate of content discovery. Simply, Fabric makes it so that more people see more content.
With Unified under the hood at Fabric, the company is poised to drive more growth. And inspire more delight.
Reorient the future
The smartphone-led video watching habits of people globally means the demand for vertically formatted videos is ratcheting up. Luckily, Unified can support that variety for Fabric in the future, too.
Quotes
“By using Unified Streaming, we can deliver the latest hot trailer to our customers in an adaptive format in just minutes, driving billions of plays globally on behalf of studios, clients, and audiences,” said Bob Kolo, VP of Technology, Fabric.
“Fabric has been with us since the beginning of Unified Streaming, and we’re proud to be an instrumental part of their streaming workflow,” said Dirk Griffioen, CEO of Unified Streaming.
About Fabric
Fabric provides the entertainment industry with the world's best data and operations solutions, helping them to connect people with the content that they love. Since its inception Fabric has been intensely focused on bringing clarity and unity to the media supply chain, and providing the crucial source-of-truth that is the bedrock for any data-driven enterprise.
Today Fabric is a market leader in scheduling, metadata management, and content data, with a wealth of integrations, partnerships, and experience with organizations across the entirety of the media and entertainment ecosystem.
About Unified Streaming
Unified Streaming is a creator of world-class streaming software and an authority in defining industry-advancing standards and specifications.
Founded in 2012, Unified Streaming leads the new wave of content aggregation, providing tools for dynamic and static packaging, capture, and enhanced playlist technology. By building stable and dependable software, Unified Streaming helps customers solve complex streaming challenges.
Companies deploy Unified Streaming solutions not just to unlock creative new ways for personalizing, protecting, and repurposing their content, but also to create great value.
With over 140 broadcasters, telcos, streaming platforms, content creators, and ecosystem partners worldwide, Unified Streaming produces software that is under the hood of the largest and best-known streaming platforms and services.
TL;DR
Trailers are crucial for driving attention and sales in TV, film, and gaming. Fabric, a major provider of trailer delivery for studios and broadcasters, relies on Unified Streaming’s software to package and deliver thousands of videos every month across every type of screen. Since partnering in 2012, Unified Streaming’s reliability, speed, adaptive formats (like HLS), and powerful API have become the backbone of Fabric’s global trailer distribution. Together, they enable billions of fast, high-quality trailer plays—and are positioned to support new formats like vertical video as viewing habits evolve.