GSIEDS & iPhone power Lightcraft’s revolutionary Jetset Cine unified virtual production system

London, England, Thursday 15th Feb, 2024: Accsoon’s SeeMo Pro SDI monitoring/recording/streaming adapter for iOS and Accsoon’s new CineView HE wireless camera video transmitters will power Lightcraft Technology’s Jetset Cine virtual production system – being shown in England for the first time at the British Society of Cinematographers (BSC) Expo at the Battersea Evolution in London.

Virtual production is the process of using digitally generated worlds to replace the need for expensive backgrounds or highly sought-after film locations. Typically, these worlds have required the use of expensive LED volumes which can cost upwards of $40,000 per day and require complicated technical knowledge to operate them. However, there is no part of the virtual production process that inherently demands that an LED volume must be used. In fact, if the software processing is sophisticated enough, virtual production and background replacement can be done in real time with only a mobile device. With recent developments from Lightcraft and in AI, this is now possible.

Jetset Cine gives full virtual production capability to any cinema camera using just an iPhone. First, the calibration process uses the Accsoon SeeMo and the iPhone to calibrate the cine lens and measure the exact offset to the iPhone lens. Then, while shooting, the iPhone creates a camera track which is later combined with the cine camera footage. This workflow removes the need for an LED volume by doing all of the background replacement directly in the iPhone.

Jetset Cine boasts the industry’s lowest latency, surpassing systems relying on external GPU-based rendering. By Lightcraft directly rendering the background on the iPhone, a tight connection with the live foreground is the result. For cinematographers, this instant response is key to making creative decisions.

The Jetset Unified Virtual Production System brings together cinematographers, directors, and visual effects experts by unifying the way they work together. Jetset automatically captures all the media and metadata needed for a robust finishing pipeline. Lightcraft’s Autoshot unifies all the separate applications that experts use to make a beautiful final result. For example, Autoshot has bridges to Blender, Unreal, After Effects, Nuke, Cinema 4D and many others.

Beyond all the new technology, the biggest way that Jetset unifies virtual production is by making it free to all. Jetset then becomes a shared language across all virtual production.

“Jetset fulfills the dream I had of making virtual production available to all filmmakers when I started Lightcraft Technology twenty years ago. In those days our solution cost $180,000. While it was exciting to win the Emmy in 2013, I always hoped we could bring down the cost and make a more complete solution. Now with the tracking and rendering power of the iPhone, and the capability of free software like Blender, Lightcraft Jetset can deliver a fully functional virtual production system for all filmmakers, for free,” said Lightcraft founder and CEO Eliot Mack.

Bill Warner, founder of Avid Technology, joined Eliot and Lightcraft in 2019 as co-founder and Chairman. “As a self-funded company, we were able to take the time we needed to build exactly the product we felt would transform the industry. Now that it’s here, I can’t wait to see how the virtual production world gets opened up to so many new people. One of the statistics I like to tell people is that an LED wall stage can cost $40,000 per day. Jetset Cine is about $2/day. This is 20,000 times less, and yet we believe Jetset can deliver a superior result, in less time, with vastly less complexity.”

Lightcraft Jetset is free. For cinematographers, two upgrades are available:

Jetset Pro (£20/month, £200/year) is for the growing group of people shooting final footage on the iPhone. The upgrade provides 4K shooting, a live render preview for Unreal, a built-in 3D scanner that matches sets with virtual extensions, a wireless client monitor, and remote control of animation.

Jetset Cine (£80/month, £800/year) lets you shoot with any cine camera and your cine lenses. Jetset Cine has an integrated calibration tool that rapidly determines the cine lens calibration and measures exact details of your camera rig. Autoshot handles the flow of all media files and their metadata. The iPhone generates tracking data at 30 frames per second. Autoshot interpolates this data to match the 23.98, 24, and 25 frames per second media generated by the main camera.

Jetset has its own electronic slate that runs on any browser and uses Apple’s internal clock or a local time code generator. With Jetset Cine, you begin a shot by shooting the electronic slate. This puts up digital markers that synchronize the iPhone and the main camera. Later, Autoshot examines the main camera footage, automatically extracts the digital markers, and links the iPhone and Main Camera footage and metadata.

During the BSC Conference being held at the Battersea Evolution in London, Lightcraft will demonstrate Jetset Cine in action, showcasing a live hand-held camera in an Unreal city scene. The entire camera system will be wireless, leveraging the Accsoon CineView HE Wireless Video Systems.

Two Accsoon CineView HE long-range transmitters will be used in the demonstration to deliver the iPhone and main camera signals to the switcher in the booth. The CineView HE transmitters and receivers are dual-band and deliver the same image simultaneously over each band, intelligently recombining both in the receiver to combat interference on either band.

Jetset Cine is priced at £80/month and £800/year and is available for download on the iPhone App Store.

About SeeMo HDMI and SeeMo Pro SDI/HDMI

The SeeMo HDMI and SeeMo Pro SDI/HDMI are the world’s first affordable professional MFi-certified SDI and HDMI adapters that act as video capture terminals for iOS, connecting via Lightning or USB-C. The low latency, high-quality image (up to 1080/60P) that they produce easily betters camera-makers’ in-built Wi-Fi monitoring solutions.

The SeeMo range makes full use of the amazing screens on the later generations of iPhones and iPads by transforming them into high-grade monitors. Using the Accsoon SEE app, users have access to a complete set of professional tools such as waveform, magnification, vectorscope, false color, peaking and audio level meters. They can apply custom LUTs, or use the onion skin image overlay to precisely line up their shots. There are even options to de-squeeze anamorphic video on-screen, or flip video to aid self-shooting.

The SeeMo Pro SDI can accept HD signals up to 1080p 60fps over either HD-SDI or HDMI from cameras, mixers, games consoles, and wireless receivers. The HD-SDI input can also be looped out to allow connection to other downstream devices such as Accsoon’s own CineView SE and Quad SDI wireless transmitters.

About Lightcraft Technology

Lightcraft Technology is a leading innovator in virtual production solutions, providing cutting-edge tools for cinematographers to enhance their creative capabilities. With a commitment to pushing the boundaries of technology, Lightcraft continues to redefine the landscape of virtual production.

Prior to Lightcraft, Eliot Mack was the lead engineer for the iRobot Roomba. Prior to Lightcraft, Bill Warner founded Avid Technology and Wildfire Communications.

About Accsoon

Accsoon is a leading iOS and wireless video company. It was the originator of wi-fi based professional video monitoring systems and the first to develop a low cost MFi-certified HDMI interface for iOS. The Accsoon SeeMo line represents the connectivity center of an emerging ecosystem of iOS apps to enable video creators to work smarter. Harnessing the power of the latest iPhones and iPads with traditional cameras and devices opens the door to new ways of working with greater accuracy and speed.

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