Vibe Check: OpenAI’s Sora

The text-to-video model is finally available

December 10, 2024

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Yesterday, OpenAI released its long-awaited video model Sora to paying users—with some guardrails.

The company first teased Sora in February, but until now it was only available to a small group of testers. But now, subscribers in select countries can prompt the model, called Sora Turbo, with text, images, and videos in order to generate clips up to 20 seconds in length at 1080p resolution.

Sora isn’t just a video generator, but a full video-editing platform, complete with creative tools. In order to make Sora something special, the company knows it’ll need to compete not only with other AI tools but with legacy video-editing platforms, too.

We did a vibe check with the Every Studio team about their first impressions of Sora and surveyed the tech landscape. Here’s what they think, and what’s new.

How Sora works

What’s new with the Sora Turbo model—beyond being faster and more cost-effective than its predecessor, Sora—are the features that OpenAI has built on top of the video editing interface:

Remix lets you edit, delete, or transform elements within your video clips.
Re-cut helps you identify and select the optimal frames, letting you extend them forward or backward to build your scene.
Blend merges two separate video clips into one unified sequence.
Presets let you customize and share production styles with co-creators.
Loop optimizes clips for seamless, continuous playback.
Storyboard allows you to generate multiple AI videos and arrange them chronologically on a timeline, similar to traditional editing platforms like Adobe Premiere Pro.

And then there’s the social feed: a creative gallery where users can share videos, tweak prompts from featured videos, and co-create with other producers.

A narrative non-fiction reimagining of Protagoras by Plato. Source: X/Dan Shipper.

OpenAI delayed the release of this model for nearly a year in order to ensure it’s not prone to spreading harmful content, such as disinformation. In that regard, there are some limitations: All videos are watermarked, and you cannot use it to generate sexually explicit deepfakes.

“We want to prevent illegal activity of Sora, but we also want to balance that with creative expression,” Sora product lead Rohan Sahai said during the livestream event. “We know that...will be an ongoing challenge, we might not get it perfect on day one.”