Sohonet is a

community-of-interest network A community of interest, or interest-based community, is a community of people who share a common interest or passion. These people exchange ideas and thoughts about the given passion, but may know (or care) little about each other outside this ar ...

for the television, film and media production community based in the Soho area of London. Founded in 1995 by a group of

post-production Post-production is part of the process of filmmaking, video production, audio production, and photography. Post-production includes all stages of production occurring after principal photography or recording individual program segments. The ...

companies, Sohonet links many of the British

film studio A film studio (also known as movie studio or simply studio) is a major entertainment company or motion picture company that has its own privately owned studio facility or facilities that are used to make films, which is handled by the production ...

s to London's

community. Sohonet also provides access to the

Internet The Internet (or internet) is the global system of interconnected computer networks that uses the Internet protocol suite (TCP/IP) to communicate between networks and devices. It is a '' network of networks'' that consists of private, pub ...

, and private wide-area links to other countries. The system links film and media companies, TV broadcasters, publishers, Internet providers, graphic designers and recording studios via seamless transatlantic fibre connections to a global media network in the

United States The United States of America (U.S.A. or USA), commonly known as the United States (U.S. or US) or America, is a country primarily located in North America. It consists of 50 states, a federal district, five major unincorporated territorie ...

, (

Los Angeles Los Angeles ( ; es, Los Ángeles, link=no , ), often referred to by its initials L.A., is the largest city in the state of California and the second most populous city in the United States after New York City, as well as one of the world' ...

New York City New York, often called New York City or NYC, is the List of United States cities by population, most populous city in the United States. With a 2020 population of 8,804,190 distributed over , New York City is also the L ...

Hawaii Hawaii ( ; haw, Hawaii or ) is a state in the Western United States, located in the Pacific Ocean about from the U.S. mainland. It is the only U.S. state outside North America, the only state that is an archipelago, and the only stat ...

Chicago (''City in a Garden''); I Will , image_map = , map_caption = Interactive Map of Chicago , coordinates = , coordinates_footnotes = , subdivision_type = Country , subdivision_name ...

Seattle Seattle ( ) is a seaport city on the West Coast of the United States. It is the seat of King County, Washington. With a 2020 population of 737,015, it is the largest city in both the state of Washington and the Pacific Northwest regio ...

Atlanta Atlanta ( ) is the capital and most populous city of the U.S. state of Georgia. It is the seat of Fulton County, the most populous county in Georgia, but its territory falls in both Fulton and DeKalb counties. With a population of 498,715 ...

, etc.),

Canada Canada is a country in North America. Its ten provinces and three territories extend from the Atlantic Ocean to the Pacific Ocean and northward into the Arctic Ocean, covering over , making it the world's second-largest country by tot ...

(

Vancouver Vancouver ( ) is a major city in western Canada, located in the Lower Mainland region of British Columbia. As the List of cities in British Columbia, most populous city in the province, the 2021 Canadian census recorded 662,248 people in the ...

Toronto Toronto ( ; or ) is the capital city of the Canadian province of Ontario. With a recorded population of 2,794,356 in 2021, it is the most populous city in Canada and the fourth most populous city in North America. The city is the ancho ...

Montreal Montreal ( ; officially Montréal, ) is the List of the largest municipalities in Canada by population, second-most populous city in Canada and List of towns in Quebec, most populous city in the Provinces and territories of Canada, Canadian ...

New Zealand New Zealand ( mi, Aotearoa ) is an island country in the southwestern Pacific Ocean. It consists of two main landmasses—the North Island () and the South Island ()—and over 700 smaller islands. It is the sixth-largest island count ...

Australia Australia, officially the Commonwealth of Australia, is a Sovereign state, sovereign country comprising the mainland of the Australia (continent), Australian continent, the island of Tasmania, and numerous List of islands of Australia, sma ...

France France (), officially the French Republic ( ), is a country primarily located in Western Europe. It also comprises of Overseas France, overseas regions and territories in the Americas and the Atlantic Ocean, Atlantic, Pacific Ocean, Pac ...

Netherlands ) , anthem = ( en, "William of Nassau") , image_map = , map_caption = , subdivision_type = Sovereign state , subdivision_name = Kingdom of the Netherlands , established_title = Before independence , established_date = Spanish Netherl ...

Germany Germany,, officially the Federal Republic of Germany, is a country in Central Europe. It is the second most populous country in Europe after Russia, and the most populous member state of the European Union. Germany is situated betwe ...

Spain , image_flag = Bandera de España.svg , image_coat = Escudo de España (mazonado).svg , national_motto = ''Plus ultra'' (Latin)(English: "Further Beyond") , national_anthem = (English: "Royal March") , i ...

Singapore Singapore (), officially the Republic of Singapore, is a sovereign island country and city-state in maritime Southeast Asia. It lies about one degree of latitude () north of the equator, off the southern tip of the Malay Peninsula, borde ...

and

Italy Italy ( it, Italia ), officially the Italian Republic, ) or the Republic of Italy, is a country in Southern Europe. It is located in the middle of the Mediterranean Sea, and its territory largely coincides with the homonymous geographical re ...

(

Rome , established_title = Founded , established_date = 753 BC , founder = King Romulus (legendary) , image_map = Map of comune of Rome (metropolitan city of Capital Rome, region Lazio, Italy).svg , map_caption ...

) and the ability to provide connectivity to locations worldwide via

Fibre Optic An optical fiber, or optical fibre in Commonwealth English, is a flexible, transparent fiber made by drawing glass (silica) or plastic to a diameter slightly thicker than that of a human hair. Optical fibers are used most often as a means to ...

links. Leading British film studios,

Pinewood Studios Pinewood Studios is a British film and television studio located in the village of Iver Heath, England. It is approximately west of central London. The studio has been the base for many productions over the years from large-scale films to te ...

Shepperton Studios Shepperton Studios is a film studio located in Shepperton, Surrey, England, with a history dating back to 1931. It is now part of the Pinewood Studios Group. During its early existence, the studio was branded as Sound City (not to be confused w ...

Three Mills Studios 3 Mills Studios is a centre for film, television and theatre production near Stratford in East London. The site of a former distillery in Three Mills became a dedicated centre for television and film production work with the establishment in th ...

Twickenham Film Studios Twickenham Studios (formerly known as Twickenham Film Studios) is a film studio in St Margarets, in the London Borough of Richmond upon Thames, that is used by various motion picture and television companies. It was established in 1913 by Ralph ...

Longcross Studios Longcross Film Studios is a film and television production facility in Longcross, Surrey, approximately west of central London. Built on the site of the Military Vehicles and Engineering Establishment, the studio began operations in 2006. The stu ...

and

Warner Bros. Studios, Leavesden Warner Bros. Studios, Leavesden is an studio complex in Leavesden in Watford, Hertfordshire, in South East England. Formerly known as Leavesden Film Studios and still colloquially known as Leavesden Studios or simply Leavesden, it is a film ...

, have direct

optical fiber An optical fiber, or optical fibre in Commonwealth English, is a flexible, transparent fiber made by drawing glass (silica) or plastic to a diameter slightly thicker than that of a human hair. Optical fibers are used most often as a means to ...

connectivity to the Sohonet

London London is the capital and largest city of England and the United Kingdom, with a population of just under 9 million. It stands on the River Thames in south-east England at the head of a estuary down to the North Sea, and has been a majo ...

Fiber Ring, with campus connectivity on the sites provided via

fiber Fiber or fibre (from la, fibra, links=no) is a natural or artificial substance that is significantly longer than it is wide. Fibers are often used in the manufacture of other materials. The strongest engineering materials often incorporate ...

and

VDSL Very high-speed digital subscriber line (VDSL) and very high-speed digital subscriber line 2 (VDSL2) are digital subscriber line (DSL) technologies providing data transmission faster than the earlier standards of asymmetric digital subscriber line ...

technologies. As well as may other studios globally, Australian examples

Village Roadshow Studios Village Roadshow Studios are a set of film studios located in Oxenford, Gold Coast, Queensland, Australia. The studios are owned by Village Roadshow and consist of nine sound stages as well as a range of other production facilities. The studio ...

, Melbourne City Studios, and

shooting film studios

Hollywood Center Studios Sunset Las Palmas Studios, formerly General Service Studios and Hollywood Center Studios, is an American independent entertainment production lot located at 1040 North Las Palmas Avenue in Hollywood, Los Angeles, California, providing stage facil ...

, and

Red Studios Hollywood Red Studios Hollywood, formerly Desilu Cahuenga Studio and Ren-Mar Studios, is a rental studio located at 846 N. Cahuenga Blvd. in Hollywood, California, on premises that were formerly the home of Desilu Productions. Originally it was the site of M ...

, as well as

Warner Bros. Warner Bros. Entertainment Inc. (commonly known as Warner Bros. or abbreviated as WB) is an American film and entertainment studio headquartered at the Warner Bros. Studios complex in Burbank, California, and a subsidiary of Warner Bros. D ...

Universal Studios Universal Pictures (legally Universal City Studios LLC, also known as Universal Studios, or simply Universal; common metonym: Uni, and formerly named Universal Film Manufacturing Company and Universal-International Pictures Inc.) is an Ameri ...

HBO Home Box Office (HBO) is an American premium television network, which is the flagship property of namesake parent subsidiary Home Box Office, Inc., itself a unit owned by Warner Bros. Discovery. The overall Home Box Office business unit is ba ...

to name a few. A pioneering user of IP-over- ATM networking, Sohonet has since moved away from ATM to using

gigabit Ethernet In computer networking, Gigabit Ethernet (GbE or 1 GigE) is the term applied to transmitting Ethernet frames at a rate of a gigabit per second. The most popular variant, 1000BASE-T, is defined by the IEEE 802.3ab standard. It came into use i ...

10 Gigabit Ethernet 10 Gigabit Ethernet (10GE, 10GbE, or 10 GigE) is a group of computer networking technologies for transmitting Ethernet frames at a rate of 10 gigabits per second. It was first defined by the IEEE 802.3ae-2002 standard. Unlike previous Eth ...

and

MPLS Multiprotocol Label Switching (MPLS) is a routing technique in telecommunications networks that directs data from one node to the next based on labels rather than network addresses. Whereas network addresses identify endpoints the labels identif ...

technologies, including the use of

wavelength division multiplexing In fiber-optic communications, wavelength-division multiplexing (WDM) is a technology which multiplexes a number of optical carrier signals onto a single optical fiber by using different wavelengths (i.e., colors) of laser light. This techniq ...

on backbone connections. Sohonet is one of the pioneers of tapeless

Digital intermediate Digital intermediate (typically abbreviated DI) is a motion picture finishing process which classically involves digitizing a motion picture and manipulating the color and other image characteristics. Definition and overview A digital intermediate ...

, and one of the instigators of the media dispatch protocol developed by the Pro-MPEG consortium, which later became a

SMPTE The Society of Motion Picture and Television Engineers (SMPTE) (, rarely ), founded in 1916 as the Society of Motion Picture Engineers or SMPE, is a global professional association of engineers, technologists, and executives working in the m ...

standard. All types of media file formats, from

QuickTime QuickTime is an extensible multimedia framework developed by Apple Inc., capable of handling various formats of digital video, picture, sound, panoramic images, and interactivity. Created in 1991, the latest Mac version, QuickTime X, is avai ...

MPEG The Moving Picture Experts Group (MPEG) is an alliance of working groups established jointly by International Organization for Standardization, ISO and International Electrotechnical Commission, IEC that sets standards for media coding, includ ...

AES/EBU AES3 is a standard for the exchange of digital audio signals between professional audio devices. An AES3 signal can carry two channels of pulse-code-modulated digital audio over several transmission media including balanced lines, unbalanced l ...

MXF MXF or mxf may refer to: * Material Exchange Format, a container format for professional digital video and audio media * MXF, the IATA and FAA LID code for Maxwell Air Force Base, Alabama, United States * mxf, the ISO 639-3 code for Malgbe language ...

through

OMFi Open Media Framework (OMF) or Open Media Framework Interchange (OMFI) is a platform-independent file format intended for transfer of digital media between different software applications. OMFI is a file format that aids in exchange of digital media ...

AAF AAF may refer to: Aviation * Aigle Azur (ICAO code), a French airline * Apalachicola Regional Airport (IATA code), in Apalachicola, Florida Corporations * American Air Filter, today a part of HVAC-equipment-maker Daikin Military * Albanian Arm ...

OpenEXR OpenEXR is a high-dynamic range, multi-channel raster file format, released as an open standard along with a set of software tools created by Industrial Light & Magic (ILM), under a free software license similar to the BSD license. It is notabl ...

, to 4k

DPX Digital Picture Exchange (DPX) is a common file format for digital intermediate and visual effects work and is a SMPTE standard (ST 268-1:2014). The file format is most commonly used to represent the density of each colour channel of a scanned n ...

files are supported. Sohonet has its own private optical fibre networks in several cities and provides high speed object storage based on

OpenStack OpenStack is a free, open standard cloud computing platform. It is mostly deployed as infrastructure-as-a-service (IaaS) in both public and private clouds where virtual servers and other resources are made available to users. The software plat ...

Swift, in number of locations worldwide

, and

Sydney Sydney ( ) is the capital city of the state of New South Wales, and the most populous city in both Australia and Oceania. Located on Australia's east coast, the metropolis surrounds Sydney Harbour and extends about towards the Blue Mountain ...

. On top of these stores, Sohonet operates a fast file transfer service called FileRunner. Sohonet also provides high speed secure connections, referred to as FastLane, into a number of public cloud providers

Google Cloud Platform Google Cloud Platform (GCP), offered by Google, is a suite of cloud computing services that runs on the same infrastructure that Google uses internally for its end-user products, such as Google Search, Gmail, Google Drive, and YouTube. Alongside ...

SoftLayer IBM Cloud, (formerly known as Bluemix) is a set of cloud computing services for business offered by the information technology company IBM. Services As of 2021, IBM Cloud contains more than 170 services including compute, storage, networki ...

, and

Amazon Web Services Amazon Web Services, Inc. (AWS) is a subsidiary of Amazon.com, Amazon that provides Software as a service, on-demand cloud computing computing platform, platforms and Application programming interface, APIs to individuals, companies, and gover ...

, to enable large scale

Cloud computing Cloud computing is the on-demand availability of computer system resources, especially data storage ( cloud storage) and computing power, without direct active management by the user. Large clouds often have functions distributed over mul ...

for

3D rendering 3D rendering is the 3D computer graphics process of converting 3D modeling, 3D models into 2D computer graphics, 2D images on a computer. 3D renders may include photorealistic rendering, photorealistic effects or non-photorealistic rendering, no ...

. In 2020, Sohonet won a

Primetime Engineering Emmy Award The Primetime Engineering Emmy Awards, or Engineering Emmys, are one of two sets of Emmy Awards that are presented for outstanding achievement in engineering development in the television industry. The Primetime Engineering Emmys are presented by ...

for its collaborative video review and editing platform, ClearView Flex. The Clearview Flex platform was also among the winners of the Advanced Imaging Society's Entertainment Technology Lumiere Awards for 2020.

Links

Website

References

Online companies of the United Kingdom Mass media companies of the United Kingdom Television and film post-production companies {{company-stub