Turn Your iPhone into a Realtime Video Tracker for Cinema Cameras with Lightcraft Jetset

by Jose PradaFebruary 28^th, 2024

Lightcraft Technology has released the Jetset Cinema app for iOS. By connecting an iPhone to Accsoon’s SeeMo Pro SDI adapter for iOS and Accsoon’s new CineView HE wireless camera video transmitters, users can convert any camera into a virtual production system. Let’s see how it works!

Lightcraft Technology is a company specializing in virtual production solutions. They showed their Jetset cine virtual production system at the BSC Expo 2024 at Battersea Evolution in London, and we were there to inform you about it. Accsoon, the company behind the SeeMo line, the iOS video connectivity solution, was the first to develop a low-cost MFi-certified HDMI interface for this operating system.

Lightcraft Jetset: a virtual reality solution in your iPhone

Technology is evolving at a pace that is sometimes hard to keep track of, and the exciting thing is that in many cases, we have access to it thanks to our smartphones. This is the case with the new Jetset Unified Virtual Production System. Powered by Accsoon’s SeeMo, the app converts the iPhone 15 Pro Max into a camera tracker and real-time previsualization device, reducing the cost of traditional virtual reality production setups.

Virtual reality is mainly used to reduce costs and replace expensive backgrounds or hard-to-get locations with digitally generated environments. However, the process is still costly, especially for small productions, with the use of LED lighting systems that require high budgets and a technically proficient crew. The good news is that now we can achieve this with sophisticated software in a mobile device, thanks to Lightcraft and AI. 

How does it work?

To make it simple, Lightcraft’s Jetset Cine app makes any cinema camera a fully-tracked virtual production system using an iPhone mounted on the camera and an Accsoon SeeMo HDMI or HD-SDI input for the iPhone. Every part of the ecosystem does its job: the AccSoon SeeMo sends the iPhone video feed from the camera, and the Jetset app compares the elements from both video feeds to create the camera offset and lens calibration. Then, while shooting, the app creates the tracking that combines later with the cinema camera footage.

What makes Jetset Cine different is the low latency that many external GPU-based rendering systems have, as it renders the background directly on the iPhone in a single frame. These features help cinematographers feel the connection between the live foreground and the generated background. 

The Live Render Preview feature communicates with the Unreal software to achieve a full-quality render that helps cinematographers with lighting and composition decisions. Lightcraft’s Autoshot unifies the postproduction process since it bridges with Blender, Unreal, After Effects, Nuke, Cinema 4D, and other platforms.

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.

Bill Warner, founder of Avid Technology, and Lightcraft co-founder and Chairman.

The SeeMo ecosystem grows with Jetset Cine 

Accsoon SeeMo brings SDI and HDMI video to the iPhone and has now integrated with Jetset, Frame.io, CameraFi, and Switcher Studio, among others. By connecting via the lightning port or USB-C, SeeMo HDMI and SeeMo Pro SDI/HDMI gives video capture for iOS, with a low-latency image up to 1080/60P, improving the cameras’ internal Wifi capabilities. That converts the iPhone or iPad into a monitor with professional tools like waveform, magnification, vectorscope, false color, peaking, LUTs, anamorphic de-squeeze, and audio level meters. 

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.

Eliot Mack, Lightcraft founder and CEO

Price and availability

Lightcraft Jetset is free and can be downloaded from the Apple App Store. For cinematographers, there are two upgrades available:

• Jetset Pro (£20/month, £200/year) for creators shooting final footage on the iPhone.
• Jetset Cine (£80/month, £800/year) allows users to film with any cinema camera and lens. 

For more information about Lightcraft Jetset and its features in the different versions, please visit this link.

The SeeMo HDMI is available for $179, and the SeeMo Pro SDI costs $349. For full details, visit the Accsoon website.

What do you think about Lightcraft Jetset and its possibilities? Have you filmed any virtual reality projects in the past? Let us know in the comments below!