Consumers who take cruises expect to have the same media-rich environment at sea they enjoy at home, with new movies and streaming TV content available on their in-cabin screen as well as on their mobile devices, even poolside. Swank Motion Pictures has created the technology cruise lines need to meet their guests’ high expectations.

“The pandemic has elevated mobile entertainment content for cruise brands,” said Bill Evjen, vice president and chief information officer of Swank Motion Pictures Inc. “We used the pandemic suspension of cruising to hone our streaming platform, and as a result, costs and operations are now simpler and more palatable. Swank has an elegant software framework that folds into existing cruise line proprietary apps to create an environment for high-resolution streaming content of all kinds, whether new movies for guests or safety and training videos for crew.”

Entertainment content has become a pillar of the cruise experience — both for guests and crew members — and cruise lines have come to recognize the value in providing mobile applications to their audiences. For guests, entertainment content including new releases from Warner Bros., Sony Pictures Entertainment, Paramount Pictures, Walt Disney, Lionsgate and many independent studios enriches their cruise experience while providing the cruise line additional touchpoints for branding. For crew, easily accessible mobile content such as training videos can facilitate communications between employer and employee while leading to better performance and greater job satisfaction.

The Swank Streaming Platform can be used as a set of streaming capabilities that easily enables integration of premium content directly into a cruise line’s proprietary passenger mobile application. Activating video-on-demand content through a cruise line app while onboard provides another way to bring passengers back to interact with the line’s app. Within the application, guests can easily select the audio and subtitle languages they prefer for a tailored experience.

Swank Motion Pictures has successfully implemented shipboard streaming systems for Princess Cruises and Virgin Voyages, each of which presented unique challenges.

“The key variable is low-impact local network streaming of high-quality content,” said Evjen. “But Swank is an expert in those areas and has worked with a variety of ships to create an environment to stream high-resolution video content to both TVs and devices onboard.”

For more information on Swank Motion Pictures or to request a trial, contact Bill Evjen,

vice president and CIO, at onboardmovies@swankmp.com