How to choose an AI video model: five questions before you pin one
Length, resolution, audio, start image and references decide the model, not the leaderboard. Five questions mapped to Sume's video catalog.
Choose an AI video model by five questions, in this order: how long, how sharp, with or without sound, from what input, and with which references. Each one removes rows from Sume's catalog, and the one or two left are the ones worth testing. New releases such as Seedance 2.5, Wan 3.0 and MiniMax H3 matter for the numbers they add to this list, not for the headline.
The five questions
| Question | If the answer is | Rows that remain |
|---|---|---|
| How long? | over 15 s | seedance-2.5, wan-3.0 |
| How long? | under 3 s | wan-3.0 |
| How sharp? | 4K | gemini-omni-flash-1.1 |
| Sound? | from the model, always | minimax-h3 rows, gemini-omni-flash-1.1 |
| Input? | a source video to edit | gemini-omni-flash-1.1 (edit), genjutsu, h3-max-recast |
| References? | images, videos and audio | seedance-2.5, wan-3.0, minimax-h3 rows |
Why not rank by quality
Quality depends on your prompt and subject, and the v1 rows take no seed, so a single sample proves little. A capability filter is repeatable. After it, run the same prompt on the surviving models at 480p and compare blind.
Where new models fit
Sume lists Seedance 2.5, Wan 3.0, MiniMax H3 and MiniMax H3 Max, Kling 3 and Gemini Omni Flash 1.1. It does not list an LTX model or a Veo id; Gemini Omni Flash is the Google row. If a model you read about is not in GET /v1/video-router/models, it is not available through the API.
Then pin
Once you know the row, pin the bare id (for example wan-3.0) on POST /v1/videos. Use sume/auto only where you do not care which model ran.
Sources
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Written by Sume