When OpenAI announced Sora earlier this year, it was already terrifying – delivering the most accurate text-to-video generator we’d yet seen. Now imagine the level it’s reached in just a few short months, and OpenAI is just giving it to the public. Well, anyone who is willing to pay for OpenAI’s ChatGPT Plus and Pro plans, at least.
This isn’t the Sora we know from February, not really. OpenAI reckons it has developed an entirely new model, called Sora Turbo, that blows its previous efforts out of the water. And, having seen some of the videos generated in the past couple of hours (account creation is currently limited for many) we see its point.
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The AI has its own website, sora.com, but don’t expect to start generating right away. OpenAI has paused Sora account creation for the time being due to high traffic. It will return eventually, however, and when it does, you’ll need a subscription to the company’s $200/m (R3,500) ChatGPT Pro if you want your videos to look their best.
Specifically, a Pro subscription allows the ability to craft twenty-second-long videos at 1080p, with the choice of shooting in widescreen, vertical or square aspect ratios. Before Sora can get to work, it’ll need a couple of words (the more descriptive the better), or you could rather give it a video or image as a reference.
Drop down to the Plus subscription (siphoning a far more acceptable $20/m from your account) and your videos will suffer accordingly. OpenAI’s limited video generation to 480p, and only allows 50, five-second videos to be made per month. Bump that up to 720p, and Sora will significantly shorten that runway, though OpenAI doesn’t delve into any specifics on time constraints.
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“For those who want more Sora, the Pro plan includes 10x more usage, higher resolutions, and longer durations. We’re working on tailored pricing for different types of users, which we plan to make available early next year,” the company’s announcement reads.
It’s worth mentioning that Sora is not perfect – far from it, in fact. The examples that Sora has cooked up in an attempt to convince you that $200/m is really worth the price of admission, are a far cry from the sort of creation done by your average Joe. It’ll need a whole lot of work to get something great, using up valuable resources.
There’s also the question of abuse. OpenAI mentions that all of Sora’s videos feature C2PA metadata, as well as OpenAI watermarks, allowing the company to keep track of all videos made by its AI model. It’s also put in the expected safeguards against sexual deepfakes of any sort. We wonder how long those will last before someone figures a way around them.
At the time of writing, Sora is open to users in the US and “many countries,” according to OpenAI CEO Sam Altman, although he mentions that “most of Europe and the UK” will not have access for the time being.
