Lightcraft Technologies’ Jetset app-based solution uses the iPhone and Accsoon’s SeeMo to create a high quality, low cost, virtual production system. It was first shown at the BSC Expo in London earlier this year and since that time numerous improvements have already been made including the ability to now have embedded timecode.
If you are not familiar with Jetset, it is essentially a pre-visualization tool that can be used for virtual production.
The whole concept behind Jetset is to vastly cut the cost of virtual production using Unreal Engine and building the Jetset system in software on the iOS has allowed the team, which includes Eliot Mack, the former lead engineer on the iRobot Roomba and Bill Warner, the founder of Avid Technology, to innovate very quickly. It was pretty impressive to see how it worked in person.
This synchronization capability is traditionally limited to high-end broadcast equipment using hardware genlock capabilities and HDSDI video capture. A typical camera tracking device with hardware genlock costs $5k-$40k, and a typical HDSDI video capture board can be up to $5k.
CoreSync uses a combination of Accsoon’s SeeMo live video connection to iOS devices and the NDI protocol to create both a live camera tracking signal at cine camera frame rates, and a matching wireless video signal with embedded timecode. It does this without requiring any additional video hardware.
Unreal and other live rendering systems can take in the tracking data and video signal, and use the embedded timecode in both signals to automatically match 3D rendered frames with their associated video frame. This automatic matching is the key technical feature that enables accurate virtual background sync to live action video.
Jetset Cine with CoreSync now provides a fully integrated virtual production capability to any cinema camera using just an iPhone and the Accsoon SeeMo. By using the SeeMo’s live video connection capability for rapid cine lens calibration and video streams, and NDI’s ability to embed timecode to a wireless video signal, this workflow removes the need for dedicated high-end hardware, while maintaining real-time frame-synchronized rendering in external rendering engines.
How much does it cost?
Jetset Cine is priced at $80/month and $800/year and is available for download on the iPhone App Store.
