Has AI Video Achieved 100% Realism?

01 · breaking news · ▶ on the show at 4:28

Seedance 2.0 likeness fight scene

The first Seedance 2.0 clip of the night, and the one that set the tone. ByteDance's new model had been out in China since the weekend, and the clips hitting social media were, as Chris put it, absolutely bonkers. This one looks like two people have dropped their own likeness into a choreographed fight. Chris compared it to the promise of Sora 2, where putting yourself in the video made AI far more social. Fights, basketball and fast, intricate action were where Seedance looked strongest.

Seedance 2.0

02 · ▶ on the show at 7:46

Super Bowl realism test

By Stefan

Stefan, a French creator Chris met at Adobe's VIP summit, put Seedance 2.0 through some Super Bowl scenes to test its realism. What impressed Chris most was the multi-shot ability: the cut shots were probably all generated from a single start frame, yet the scene holds its continuity from shot to shot. Sora did something similar first, but only a week earlier the hosts had been saying everything was Kling 3.0 and wondering who could come close. Stefan is set to come on the show.

“It's incredible how it's able to go from scene to scene with continuity like that.”Chris Branch · ▶ 8:33

Seedance 2.0

03 · ▶ on the show at 11:22

Seedance 2.0 spec ad

By Billy Boman

Recommended by Miriam in the chat. Billy Boman works in advertising, and while most early Seedance 2.0 clips were pure action with little story, he went straight to testing what the model could do for ads, exactly as the hosts would have. The result is a quick spec ad. Chris's read: with a few initial ideas and images you can chain multi-shot generations together into something around spec length, about 30 seconds. Andrew's verdict: specs are always his favourite.

“We're going to be seeing a lot more spec ads if you ask me.”Chris Branch · ▶ 12:20

Seedance 2.0

04 · ▶ on the show at 13:15

Farmed

By Callum

A Kling 3.0 short from Callum, who spent a decade at Bloomberg as head producer and creative director and now works at Where Giants Roam. Chris asked him for the high-res file and introduced it with as little as possible, because the film tells its own story. It was a reminder that Kling 3.0, by then rolled out beyond the Ultra plans to the normal ones, was still producing strong work in a week Seedance dominated. Callum is set to come on the show too.

“I'm not going to say anything more about it because it really tells the story itself.”Chris Branch · ▶ 13:40

Kling 3.0

05 · ▶ on the show at 24:55

The Dor Brothers' new music video

By The Dor Brothers

The Dor Brothers sent over a high-quality version of their latest music video, and Chris rates it in the top three things they've ever made. The track sounds like the band Tool with a heavier EDM-style drop: they played their own original music, remixed it in Suno, then made all the visuals. It's the Dor Brothers, so expect nudity and some extreme scenes. Chris had watched it six times and still got goosebumps, and Andrew said it could have aired on MTV in the 90s.

“It reminds me of a '90s MTV. This could be on MTV in the '90s.”Andrew Davis · ▶ 28:00

Suno

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06 · breaking news · ▶ on the show at 32:35

Seedance 2.0 style adherence test

Chris's favourite test of any new video model isn't photorealism, it's whether the model sticks to the style of the first frame you give it, because plenty of models drift into something else entirely. This back-to-back run of style tests through Seedance 2.0 is what made him truly excited to try it. On price, he'd heard the Chinese version was running at around 72 cents per second or less, though what the West would pay was still unknown.

“My first question isn't how good is its photorealism, it's how good does it adhere to styles.”Chris Branch · ▶ 32:44

Seedance 2.0

07 · breaking news · ▶ on the show at 36:37

Seedance 2.0 Iron Man fight scene

Chris steered clear of the blatant IP clips doing the rounds, like Jet Li against Bruce Lee or Colonel Sanders against Ronald McDonald, because Seedance 2.0 looked likely to be toned down before it reached the West. He made an exception for this fight featuring a different take on Iron Man. How do you even prompt a fight like this? People in China were prompting in Cantonese and Mandarin, so whether English prompts would get the same results was still an open question.

Seedance 2.0

08 · breaking news · ▶ on the show at 40:51

Seedance 2.0 stylised first-frame clip

Another style clip, with wild camera moves while the look stays exactly as the first frame set it up. Without a reference to hold onto, most models invent a style they think is close, which turns generation into a slot machine. Seedance 2.0 also reportedly launched in China with multiple video, image and audio inputs at once, breaking the usual pattern of new models arriving with first frame only and getting features back one point update at a time.

Seedance 2.0

09 · ▶ on the show at 44:30

Kling 3.0 dialogue scene

By Stefan

Chris gave Kling 3.0 its due: for realistic dialogue, it was still the one. Stefan, the creator behind the earlier Super Bowl test, made this office drama where colleagues clash over who runs a project, with several people talking in one scene, different accents, consistent characters and real emotion. Stefan was at an AI festival in Paris and dropped into the chat to thank us for showing his little dialogue scene. Andrew's warning: pure-dialogue work invites the backlash of why not just use actors.

“Who said the AI acting was never going to have emotion?”Chris Branch · ▶ 46:25

Kling 3.0

10 · ▶ on the show at 51:52

LTX-2 open source spec ad

By Adam Palmer

Open source is coming for AI video. If you own the hardware, a model like LTX-2 runs locally with no generation costs, and Chris rated it the best open source video model at the time. This spec ad, all breathing cues and quiet encouragement before it ends on growing together, was made by Adam Palmer, creative director at Lightricks, the team that open-sourced LTX-2, and the creator of the Audible spec shown a week or two earlier. Chris called in-house tool directors marketing 101.

“Not a bad spec ad from an open source video model, right?”Chris Branch · ▶ 53:11

LTX-2

11 · ▶ on the show at 54:39

Specsavers Valentine's Day hearing aid ad

By Specsavers, MG OMD

Chris saved this for the middle of the show and wouldn't name the brand first, because that would give the twist away. It's a Valentine's Day ad written like a sultry pitch for a couples' device, small but powerful, AI-powered and discreet enough for a work meeting, until the reveal: it's a hearing aid. It's a real campaign by MG OMD with Specsavers, not AI, but Chris pointed out every close-up product shot looked like something you could make with Nano Banana. The script and the twist do all the work.

“It could have been an AI generated spec ad. Literally every single one of those elements could have been AI if you had the right taste.”Chris Branch · ▶ 57:31

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12 · breaking news · ▶ on the show at 1:01:07

Will Smith eating spaghetti in Seedance 2.0

Will Smith eating spaghetti has somehow become the internet's standard test for every new video model, so Chris didn't count it as the kind of IP he'd been avoiding. Someone made a Will Smith spaghetti monster in Seedance 2.0, and it went straight on screen. The hosts found it hilarious that this ever became the benchmark of what a model can do, and funnier still that Will Smith himself seems to embrace it.

Seedance 2.0

13 · breaking news · ▶ on the show at 1:05:00

Seedance 2.0 sports physics demo

Sports physics comes up every time a model launches, and Andrew always wants to see a football clip and how it handles dribbling. This Seedance 2.0 sports montage, voiced over with lines about balance, strength, flow and speed, made Chris wonder whether Seedance could become the spec ad model of choice for sport. The standout shot was the swimmer's front crawl, where the water and the splashes look exactly how you'd expect them to.

Seedance 2.0

14 · breaking news · ▶ on the show at 1:06:44

Seedance 2.0 war action clip

A last unlabelled Seedance 2.0 clip Chris grabbed right before the show, and he wasn't expecting what came out. Remember the complaints about Dave Clark's action scenes, that the guns didn't look like they were really firing? Here that looks solved, with shaking cameras and realistic movement. The best shot follows a tank's shell as the camera spins around it. It isn't flawless, but it's the kind of sequence that used to need a multi-million budget, and it could pass for a Call of Duty or Battlefield ad.

Seedance 2.0

15 · ▶ on the show at 1:12:46

Llo Gal's Spanish-language long-form film

By Llo Gal

Llo Gal, a legend of the show whose Porsche ad was our very first behind-the-scenes, sent a 2.5GB high-res file of this Spanish-language drama with English subtitles, and we paused halfway to talk. Chris called it groundbreaking for true emotion across several characters, with a tense argument, real laughter and a twist, and no Seedance-style action needed. It has clearly had upscaling and post-production, probably grain and colour grading too. Chris sees it as a teaser for the high-end original AI series coming soon.

“This is so watchable even though it's not in English, just with English subtitles and the lip sync and everything.”Chris Branch · ▶ 1:16:55

16 · ▶ on the show at 1:25:33

War of Words

By Jimmy

Jimmy's long-form satire, shown in 4K: a US president with a sinking approval rating fakes a war, the troops sunbathe at Camp Pina Colada, and then China wants in. Jimmy told the chat it was about 90% Kling 2.6 with a little Seedance 1.5, Midjourney to design the style, Gemini Pro for framing and dozens of hero images for consistency. The writing took a few weeks, then he made the film in three or four. Built in six or seven acts, it ends on a serious final chapter.

“The last chapter was my favourite, Jimmy, of all the chapters.”Chris Branch · ▶ 1:50:07

Kling 2.6Seedance 1.5Midjourney