What does a generated clip look like?
Not a tool page. A description of the artefact itself — how long, how sharp, what gives it away, and what the paperwork says you may do with it.
The shape of the output
| Property | Typical in 2026 |
|---|---|
| Length | Four to ten seconds per generation |
| Resolution | 480p to 720p, often upscaled afterwards |
| Shots | One continuous take, no cuts |
| Audio | Rare, and usually added separately |
| Format | MP4, with GIF and WebP as re-encodes of the same generation |
Tells, in order of reliability
These are stable across vendors because they come from how the models work rather than from any one implementation. Hands and contact points change between frames. Anything occluded re-renders on the way out. Small persistent detail drifts. Lettering reshapes itself continuously. And clips end where coherence ends rather than where a scene would.
Rights in the file
Copyright in purely machine-generated output is unsettled in most jurisdictions, which makes the practical question narrower: what the vendor's terms grant and what they reserve. Three patterns recur — a full grant of output rights, a personal-use licence, and a reservation allowing the vendor to reuse generations in promotion. The difference is material and it is almost never on the pricing page.
Verdict
The file is short, soft and licensed
Expect a single take of a few seconds at 720p, with the familiar artefacts at the edges of motion, and read the terms before planning to publish any of it. Those three facts cover most of what buyers in this category are surprised by.
Paid placement
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Questions
- How long is a generated clip, really?
- Four to ten seconds across consumer-priced services. Longer output exists and is assembled from several generations, which is visible at the joins. Treat a minute of advertised runtime as an editing claim rather than a generation one.
- What gives generated footage away?
- Hands first, then anything that passes behind something else, then small persistent detail — jewellery, nails, patterns — and any lettering in frame. Recorded footage keeps these stable between frames; generated footage renegotiates them.
- Why do so many clips loop?
- Matching the first and last frame hides the point where coherence would fail. It is a consequence of clip length rather than a style.
- Can a clip be published commercially?
- That is decided by the terms of the tool that produced it, and the terms vary more here than anywhere else in software. Some grant output rights outright, some license personal use only, several reserve the right to reuse your generations in their own promotion.