Sora, OpenAI’s incredible AI video creation tool is now public. And the public really wants it because it’s been tough to sign up on day one – as I found out. It took several attempts before breaking through to the onboarding process.
Sora makes short videos that can be funky, impressionistic or extremely lifelike from a text prompt. Since its stunning reveal in February this year Sora has wowed media professionals with its realism. Now it’s available for anyone to use, for a fee. US$20 gets you started but if you really want to get cracking then you’ll need to cough up US$200 per month.
And that price difference is important because there are limitations in place. This essentially has to do with preventing the misuse of images of real people.
Loop: a golden retriever puppy wearing a superhero outfit complete with a mask and cape stands perched on the top of the empire state building in winter, overlooking the nyc it protects at night. the back of the pup is visible to the camera; his attention faced to nyc
“Today, we’re blocking particularly damaging forms of abuse, such as child sexual abuse materials and sexual deepfakes,” Sora’s blog says.
“Uploads of people will be limited at launch, but we intend to roll the feature out to more users as we refine our deepfake mitigations.”
The blog also warned that this version of Sora “often generates unrealistic physics and struggles with complex actions over long durations” so don’t expect Hollywood results just yet. These clips are short, not always good and limited to 1080p.
ChatGPT Plus
$20.00/month
- Up to 50 priority videos (1,000 credits)
- Up to 720p resolution and 5s duration
ChatGPT Pro
$200.00/month
- Up to 500 priority videos (10,000 credits)
- Unlimited relaxed videos
- Up to 1080p resolution, 20s duration and 5 concurrent generations
- Download without watermark
All Sora-generated videos come with C2PA metadata. This shows the source is Sora AI. A watermark has been added but these are easy to remove.
a closeup of a woman’s face with brown hair, circular red tinted glasses and dark red lipstick. the wind is blowing her hair, and there are surfboards in the background. she gazes to the ocean and the horizon, with gorgeous lighting creating a warm ambiance
SO WHAT CAN YOU DO?
Users can generate and amazing array of videos but to enjoy the most freedom, you need the expensive plan. This improves the length to 20 seconds and resolution to 1080p.
Both plans will offer 16:9 or vertical video for social. You also have the ability to add your own assets (not people for most users) to extend, remix, blend, or generate new content from text.
A new interface makes creating content simple and a storyboard tool lets users precisely specify inputs for each frame.
WHERE TO FROM HERE?
in a pastel bathroom with a rubber ducky, an adorable dragon made entirely of shampoo bubbles. the dragon breathes bubbles
Sora burst out of the blocks with stunning realistic videos at the start of the year. But the public launch has been restrainded by an understandably cautious approach.
The use of real people has always been a problem for AI video creation. Sora will need to overcome the risk of abuse at a scale that could overwhelm the platform.
For now, most will be creating fun videos or shots for projects that would not have been possible a few years ago.
Strap in people, it’s going to be a wild ride.
