What is Seaweed AI?
Seaweed is a 7 billion parameter video generation model developed by ByteDance. It’s designed to create videos from a variety of inputs such as text, images, and audio.
Type: Text-to-video and multimodal video generator
Architecture: Variational Autoencoder + Latent Diffusion Transformer
Training data: Large-scale multimodal datasets (video, images, text)
Training compute: Equivalent to 665,000 H100 GPU hours
This model allows users to generate videos that include human characters, natural landscapes, product placements, and audio-lip-synced animations, all with impressive realism.
Overview of Seaweed AI
| Feature | Details |
|---|---|
| Developer | ByteDance |
| Model Name | Seaweed (Seed Video) |
| Parameters | 7 Billion |
| Architecture | Variational Autoencoder + Latent Diffusion Transformer |
| Input Types | Text, Image, Audio |
| Output | Video (Up to 60 seconds with extension techniques) |
| Performance | Outperforms models like Sora, Hunyuan, and VGen 2.1 in benchmarks |
| Modes | Text-to-Video, Image-to-Video, Audio-to-Video, Reference-based |
| Official website | https://seaweed.video/ |
Key Features of Seaweed AI
Text-to-Video Generation
Simply describe a scene using text, and the model generates a video that matches your prompt, accepting varied resolutions, aspect ratios, and durations.
Human-Centric Videos
Creates lifelike human characters with natural gestures, expressive emotions, and realistic motion, such as a person skateboarding or a child showing wonder in a forest.
Landscape and Environment Creation
Excels at building detailed scenes like forests, urban settings, and ocean views, all with dynamic camera movements and rich detail.
Image-Guided Video
Use an image as the first frame, and the model continues the video based on style, motion consistency, and subject focus.
First-to-Last Frame Transitions
Feed both the first and last frames, and Seaweed generates the in-between transition automatically, great for product ads or storyboarding.
Reference-Based Video Generation
Provide reference images of a person, object, or scene, and Seaweed will convert that into a full motion video.
Audio-Conditioned Videos
Takes audio input and generates a character that lip-syncs and gestures naturally to the voice, with great potential for virtual influencers and animated storytelling.
Native Long Video Support
Creates single-shot 20-second videos natively, and up to 60 seconds with extensions, maintaining quality without breaking the shot.
Multi-Shot Long Stories
Supports generating multi-shot stories using a global prompt for narrative themes and individual prompts for each scene or shot.
Examples of Seaweed in Action
1. Generate Videos from Images
Our video generation model offers enhanced controls that allow users to precisely create the content they envision. By providing an image as the first frame, users can direct the model to generate the rest of the video with consistent motion and style. This grants users full control over the visual aesthetics, making it ideal for applications where accuracy and creative direction are crucial.
2. Generate Videos by References
Our model can also be finetuned to generate videos based on reference images, offering flexible input options for users. Whether it's a human reference image, an object reference image, or a combination of multiple reference images, the model can synthesize them into dynamic video sequences.
3. Human-Centric Video Generation
Seaweed is adapted to generate content conditioned on audio inputs by Omnihuman, enabling the creation of realistic human characters that perfectly match the voice in the audio. The model ensures synchronized lip movements and body gestures that align with the tone and timing of the audio, creating a seamless and lifelike interaction.
4. Generate Audio with Video
Seaweed is also capable of generating both audio and video together. The audio generated is synced to reflect the action, scene, tone, rhythm, and style of the video. The audio complements and elevates the visual storytelling, providing a seamless multimedia experience.
5. Long-Shot Generation
Seaweed supports natively generating a single shot lasting 20 seconds without any extension technique. With the extension, it can generate videos up to a minute long.
6. Real-Time Generation
Seaweed can also generate videos in real-time at 1280x720 resolution and 24fps. This is particularly valuable for real-time and interactive applications, where immediate video generation is essential.
Pros and Cons
Pros
- Realistic human motion
- Detailed environments supported
- Text-to-video capability
- Audio-driven generation
- Long video support
- Strong storytelling consistency
- Fast inference speed
Cons
- No public release
- Heavy GPU usage
How to Use Seaweed AI Video Generator?
Step 1: Choose Your Input Method
Click “Generate Video” on the Seaweed tool. Pick between:
- Image to Video – Upload an image
- Text Prompt – Describe your scene
Step 2: Select the Model
Use Video S2 model — this is the most recent version and gives the best quality results.
Step 3: Set Your Video Details
Choose the aspect ratio (I usually go with 16:9). Note: Duration is fixed at 5 seconds.
Step 4: Input Your Prompt or Image
Example text prompt: “A woman laughing uncontrollably, tears streaming down her face” or upload an image to animate.
Step 5: Click Generate
Wait for the video to be created. Review the animation and repeat if needed.