Seedream 5.0 PRO

If you’re tired of Banana’s recent glitches, here’s a new toy.

Seedream 5.0 Pro is focused on editing tools: select an area with a point, box, lasso, color mark, or sketch, then add/remove objects, change colors by HEX, replace materials, or turn sketches into finished designs.

The underrated part: layers — PNG with transparency. It can split an image into 10+ independent layers: text, background, characters, decorations, and even restore hidden background areas.

Also: lots of focus on infographics and text. Weirdly, native resolution seems capped at 2K.

Available via API on BytePlus and aggregators.

Price-wise, it looks about half the cost of Banana — but check for yourself.

I also made a Seedream 5.0 Pro vs GPT-Image-2 comparison.

The one with the bigger white car is Seedream. Both look great.

Prompts for a Frozen Camera in Seedance 2.0

A single continuous handheld handycam shot in slow motion, drifting and weaving organically through a completely frozen party scene. Every person is suspended mid-motion, like a living diorama. The camera gently circles and floats through the space with subtle handheld shake, creating a natural, immersive perspective. The environment remains perfectly still while only the camera moves. One seamless, uninterrupted slow-motion take.

Lucy 2.5 – Real-Time Video Compositing and Editing

The idea itself isn’t exactly new—we’ve already seen similar approaches in LivePortrait, InfiniteTalk, and, of course, Kling’s Motion Control.

You upload an image of a character, take a video of yourself (or a more talented actor) performing in front of the camera, and your character instantly mimics those movements. In the 3D world, this is called retargeting.

But here’s the exciting part:

Everything happens in real time.

Just load an image, turn on your webcam, and start streaming at 24–30 FPS with minimal latency. The developers claim near-zero latency, although in real-world conditions, once internet transmission is factored in, I’d expect around 1–2 seconds of delay.

MiniMax H3
MiniMax has started rolling out Hailuo H3, the next generation of its video model. It's more than an upgrade to Hailuo 2.3, combining video generation, directing, and audio in one system. H3 supports text-to-video, image-to-video, multi-scene generation, character consistency from reference images, and prompt-based editing.
The only catch is that the official MiniMax website still lists Hailuo 2.3 as the public model, suggesting H3 is being released through partners and selected users.
H3 generates 5–15 second videos in native 2K at 24 FPS with synchronized audio. It accepts text prompts, a starting or ending frame, up to nine images, three video references, and three audio files. Multi-shot scenes and consistent characters are supported.
The motion quality looks impressive.
Official pricing hasn't been announced, but one statement claims:
"It uses the same amount of consumption as Seedance 2.0's 480p at 2K resolution."
If true, 2K generation in H3 costs about the same as 480p in Seedance 2.0.

Wan 3.0 is here! 🚀

In short: Alibaba has officially launched the public beta of Wan 3.0. The new model can generate videos with audio up to 30 seconds long in 480p, 720p, and 1080p.

New features also include automatic duration selection, video continuation, and improved consistency of characters, objects, and scenes across longer clips.

https://article.9466.com/news/aKweEQlm

API pricing:

480p — around $0.04 per second

720p — around $0.08 per second

1080p — around $0.17 per second

That means a maximum 30-second video costs approximately $1.25 at 480p, $2.50 at 720p, and around $5 at 1080p.

But there’s a catch: when using a video reference, Alibaba charges not only for the generated output but also for the duration of the uploaded reference video.

The formula is: input video + generated video.

For example, a 10-second reference combined with a 30-second 1080p output would cost approximately $6.70.