RCTV — AI Software & the Business of Generative Video

RCTV — AI Software & the Business of Generative Video https://rctv.com/ Recent content on RCTV — AI Software & the Business of Generative Video Hugo en-us RCTV {year} Mon, 11 May 2026 05:00:00 -0400 AI Video Weekly Roundup — May 11, 2026 https://rctv.com/posts/ai-video-weekly-roundup-2026-05-11/ Mon, 11 May 2026 05:00:00 -0400 https://rctv.com/posts/ai-video-weekly-roundup-2026-05-11/ <p>Two weeks before Google I/O, a leaked UI string in Gemini’s video tab — “Powered by Omni” — replaced the Veo 3.1 attribution the same surface carried in late April. The federal regulatory frame moved faster than the model frame in parallel: the TAKE IT DOWN Act compliance deadline closed to eight days out, the White House confirmed an FDA-style AI vetting executive order is in drafting, and three more states signed deepfake legislation.</p> Other RCTVs https://rctv.com/other-rctvs/ Wed, 06 May 2026 18:00:00 -0500 https://rctv.com/other-rctvs/ <p>“RCTV” is a popular acronym, used by many independent organizations around the world. We’ve collected the ones we know about here — partly as a courtesy to anyone who arrived at our site looking for a different RCTV, partly because we like the company.</p> HappyHorse-1.0 Is Open Source. The Weights Are a Different Story. https://rctv.com/posts/happyhorse-open-source-claim/ Wed, 06 May 2026 06:00:00 -0400 https://rctv.com/posts/happyhorse-open-source-claim/ <p>The <a href="https://www.happyhorse.me/open-source">happyhorse.me/open-source landing page</a> says what it says: “Happy Horse 1.0 is Open Source.” The page goes further. It describes base weights, a distilled model, a super-resolution module, and inference code as “publicly available on GitHub under a permissive license.”</p> AI Policy https://rctv.com/ai-policy/ Tue, 05 May 2026 10:00:00 -0500 https://rctv.com/ai-policy/ <h2 id="how-rctv-uses-ai">How RCTV Uses AI</h2> <p>RCTV is an AI-native publication. This page explains how we work, where AI does the writing, where humans intervene, and how we maintain accuracy. We aim to be transparent about our process because (a) you deserve to know what you’re reading, and (b) we believe an AI-authored publication can earn trust only by being honest about how it operates.</p> Corrections https://rctv.com/corrections/ Tue, 05 May 2026 10:00:00 -0500 https://rctv.com/corrections/ <h2 id="corrections">Corrections</h2> <p>RCTV corrects material errors of fact promptly. When we update a published article to correct an error, we add a dated correction note at the bottom of the article describing what was changed and why. Minor copy fixes (typos, formatting) are made without notation.</p> Editorial and Disclosures Policy https://rctv.com/disclosures/ Tue, 05 May 2026 10:00:00 -0500 https://rctv.com/disclosures/ <h2 id="editorial-and-disclosures-policy">Editorial and Disclosures Policy</h2> <p>RCTV is an AI-native independent publication. This page describes how we work, what we disclose, and how we maintain accuracy and independence.</p> Privacy Policy https://rctv.com/privacy/ Tue, 05 May 2026 10:00:00 -0500 https://rctv.com/privacy/ <blockquote> <p><strong>Draft pending legal review.</strong> This policy is a first-pass draft posted for transparency about the data practices currently in effect. The owner is having it reviewed by counsel; substantive language may change after that review.</p> Terms of Service https://rctv.com/terms/ Tue, 05 May 2026 10:00:00 -0500 https://rctv.com/terms/ <blockquote> <p><strong>Draft pending legal review.</strong> These terms are a first-pass draft. The owner is having them reviewed by counsel; substantive language may change after that review.</p> AI Video Weekly Roundup — May 4, 2026 https://rctv.com/posts/ai-video-weekly-roundup-2026-05-04/ Mon, 04 May 2026 09:00:00 -0500 https://rctv.com/posts/ai-video-weekly-roundup-2026-05-04/ <p>Alibaba’s HappyHorse-1.0 went commercial on fal Monday. A day later, Pika Labs reintroduced itself as an agent that orchestrates Kling, Veo, MiniMax, and Sora — including its own video model in the lineup. Two launches, one theme: the labs gaining ground are the ones building over the model layer, not winning the model layer.</p> AI Video Weekly Roundup — April 27, 2026 https://rctv.com/posts/ai-video-weekly-roundup-2026-04-27/ Mon, 27 Apr 2026 06:00:00 -0500 https://rctv.com/posts/ai-video-weekly-roundup-2026-04-27/ <p>OpenAI’s consumer Sora app went dark on Sunday — the executed end of an arc announced 33 days ago. The same week, Adobe quietly turned Firefly into a 30-model aggregation hub for video, Tencent shipped an open-source 3D world model to match Alibaba’s Happy Oyster from two weeks back, and a Johannesburg agency proved Luma Agents can carry a national auto commercial. The week’s headline isn’t a new model — it’s that the platform layer is now where AI video is being decided.</p> Sora Is Gone. Here's What the Numbers Actually Mean. https://rctv.com/posts/sora-shutdown-what-the-numbers-mean/ Mon, 20 Apr 2026 00:00:00 -0500 https://rctv.com/posts/sora-shutdown-what-the-numbers-mean/ <p>Sora launched in December 2024 to more hype than any AI product since GPT-4. OpenAI <a href="https://help.openai.com/en/articles/20001152-what-to-know-about-the-sora-discontinuation">announced its shutdown</a> on March 24, 2026 — 15 months later. The standalone social app, launched September 2025 and shuttered alongside the rest of the product line, generated <a href="https://medium.com/@shubhamnv2/openai-sora-shutdown-15m-day-costs-2-1m-revenue-the-full-story-088380118243">$2.1 million in lifetime in-app purchases</a> over its six-month life against <a href="https://www.mindstudio.ai/blog/inference-costs-ai-wall-sora-shutdown">peak inference costs estimated at $15 million per day</a>. The consumer app goes dark April 26, 2026; the API lingers until September 24. Before the narrative shifts to “strategic pivot to robotics,” the raw numbers deserve a cold stare. This wasn’t bad execution. It was a predictable collision of physics and human behavior.</p> AI Video Weekly Roundup — April 17, 2026 https://rctv.com/posts/ai-video-weekly-roundup-2026-04-17/ Fri, 17 Apr 2026 09:00:00 -0500 https://rctv.com/posts/ai-video-weekly-roundup-2026-04-17/ <p>Alibaba dominated the week — not with one announcement, but three distinct AI video and world-modeling products from three different business units. Meanwhile, the open-source tier gained a serious new contender in SkyReels V4, and xAI signaled that Grok Imagine’s 720p ceiling is about to go away.</p> AI Video Weekly Roundup — April 11, 2026 https://rctv.com/posts/ai-video-weekly-roundup-2026-04-11/ Sat, 11 Apr 2026 00:00:00 -0500 https://rctv.com/posts/ai-video-weekly-roundup-2026-04-11/ <p>A week defined by surprises and enforcement. An anonymous AI video model quietly topped the global benchmark leaderboard on April 7, then Alibaba admitted it was theirs three days later. Seedance 2.0 quietly arrived in US CapCut — a significant development given the IP standoff that surrounded its global rollout. And the TAKE IT DOWN Act, signed into law ten months ago, produced its first criminal conviction.</p> AI Video Weekly Roundup — April 4, 2026 https://rctv.com/posts/ai-video-weekly-roundup-2026-04-04/ Sat, 04 Apr 2026 00:00:00 -0500 https://rctv.com/posts/ai-video-weekly-roundup-2026-04-04/ <p>Last week OpenAI closed the door on Sora. This week Google walked through it. In a coordinated push, Google made Veo 3.1 available free to every Google account holder via Google Vids, launched a cut-price developer model for the API tier, and committed to further price cuts coming April 7. Separately, Meta’s NewFronts presentations revealed what AI video at commercial scale actually looks like — and the number attached to it is worth paying attention to.</p> AI Video Weekly Roundup — March 27, 2026 https://rctv.com/posts/ai-video-weekly-roundup-2026-03-27/ Fri, 27 Mar 2026 00:00:00 -0500 https://rctv.com/posts/ai-video-weekly-roundup-2026-03-27/ <p>The week started with the industry still processing NVIDIA GTC. It ended with the first major casualty. On Tuesday, March 24, OpenAI announced it was shutting down Sora — the model that introduced most of the world to AI video generation in early 2024. The stated reason was compute reallocation toward robotics. The real reason was legible in the numbers. Elsewhere, ByteDance found a side door for Seedance 2.0, Luma dropped a meaningfully upgraded Ray model, and Washington’s copyright battle over AI training developed a new fault line.</p> AI Video Weekly Roundup — March 20, 2026 https://rctv.com/posts/ai-video-weekly-roundup-2026-03-20/ Fri, 20 Mar 2026 09:00:00 -0500 https://rctv.com/posts/ai-video-weekly-roundup-2026-03-20/ <p>No new consumer models dropped this week. That’s not because the industry was quiet — it’s because the entire AI video world was watching San Jose. NVIDIA GTC 2026 ran March 16–19, and the announcements there didn’t change what you can generate today. They changed what will be possible, at what cost, and at what speed, by the end of this year. Runway brought the most video-specific proof: a real-time generation demo with time-to-first-frame under 100 milliseconds. And in Washington, a Senate bill proposed declaring AI training on copyrighted works categorically not fair use.</p> AI Video Weekly Roundup — March 13, 2026 https://rctv.com/posts/ai-video-weekly-roundup-2026-03-13/ Fri, 13 Mar 2026 09:00:00 -0500 https://rctv.com/posts/ai-video-weekly-roundup-2026-03-13/ <p>The standalone AI video app had a rough week. Sora 1 officially sunsets in the US today — and the numbers behind that decision tell a story the industry should take seriously. At the same time, Runway and Luma both shipped products that point toward what replaces the standalone generator: real-time avatars embedded in enterprise workflows, and agentic pipelines that handle creative production end to end. The theme this week isn’t a new model. It’s a new architecture for how AI video gets used.</p> AI Video Weekly Roundup — March 6, 2026 https://rctv.com/posts/ai-video-weekly-roundup-2026-03-06/ Fri, 06 Mar 2026 09:00:00 -0500 https://rctv.com/posts/ai-video-weekly-roundup-2026-03-06/ <p>This was the week AI video stopped being a China-vs-US model race and became a platform war. Three major ecosystem moves — Grok Imagine’s video extension, Google Flow’s consolidation, and Seedance 2.0 Pro’s third-party breakout — all signal the same shift: the generator is becoming a commodity. The workflow around it is the product.</p> AI Video Stack 2026: Live Comparison & Rankings https://rctv.com/posts/ai-video-stack-2026/ Sun, 01 Mar 2026 10:00:00 -0500 https://rctv.com/posts/ai-video-stack-2026/ <p>This is RCTV’s living reference to the AI video software stack. Updated as models launch, pricing changes, and capabilities evolve. Last updated: <strong>May 10, 2026</strong>.</p> About RCTV https://rctv.com/about/ Sat, 28 Feb 2026 10:00:00 -0500 https://rctv.com/about/ <h2 id="what-rctv-is">What RCTV is</h2> <p>RCTV is an <strong>AI-native publication</strong>. The articles here are researched, drafted, and edited by AI agents working under human editorial oversight. We say that out loud because most publications won’t, and because figuring out what AI publishing can and can’t do is part of the beat we cover.</p> AI Video Weekly Roundup — February 28, 2026 https://rctv.com/posts/ai-video-weekly-roundup-2026-02-28/ Sat, 28 Feb 2026 09:00:00 -0500 https://rctv.com/posts/ai-video-weekly-roundup-2026-02-28/ <p>Welcome to RCTV’s first <strong>AI Video Weekly Roundup</strong> — your concise briefing on the most important developments in AI software and the business of generative video. Every week we cut through the noise to bring you the stories that matter.</p>