OpenAI's Sora video generator is finally available for all – at a cost

What just happened? OpenAI has finally launched Sora, the AI video generator model that took the world by storm when it was first shown off earlier this year. The official launch came on the third day of OpenAI's "12 Days of OpenAI" event, and it's undoubtedly the biggest reveal so far.

The model powering Sora is dubbed "Sora Turbo," which is an upgraded version of what was teased back in February. This newer iteration is faster and creates higher-quality videos than the earlier demo. But Sora Turbo has some new capabilities beyond basic text-to-video generation.

It can animate still images, giving new life to existing photos. You can also feed it an old video clip along with new text prompts, and Sora will creatively remix the video based on your fresh instructions.

Then there are more advanced features too, like Storyboards and Blending. Storyboards maps out a narrative by letting you input multiple prompts to stitch together sequential scenes into a cohesive story video. Blending, on the other hand, allows you to organically merge two distinct video scenes – like transforming a forest into a futuristic cityscape through a seamless transition.

You also get multiple style presets you can apply to the video. Some of the examples include Cardboard & papercraft, Archival, Film noir, and Original. Film noir, for instance, adds some high-contrast blacks reminiscent of those mid-1900s films.

Safety is always a big concern with such technology. OpenAI has implemented the usual safety guards. Every Sora video includes metadata to identify its AI-generated origins. Watermarks are added too, though they can be disabled on the "Pro" plan.

Chatbots like ChatGPT are known to be resource-hungry enough. Video generators up that energy consumption multi-fold, so it comes as no surprise that OpenAI has implemented a credit system to limit its usage.

A ChatGPT Plus subscription will net you a limited 1,000 credits per month, which is enough for 50 videos at a 720p resolution of up to 5 seconds each. Opt for the premium ChatGPT Pro tier at $200/month, and you can create longer 1080p videos up to 20 seconds, get 10x more priority slots for faster video generation, and process up to five videos simultaneously.

It's worth mentioning that certain regions like the UK and EU don't have access yet thanks to stringent regulations. At the moment, it's unclear when the model will launch in those regions.