AI Videos for YouTube: A Specification Sheet, Setting by Setting

The frame: 16:9 is the default, and it locks

A new project starts as 16:9 Landscape, marked Recommended and described as film and large screen. The frame applies to every video in the project and is fixed once you continue past step 1; to make the same story in the other shape, start a new project with the same script and bring the cast across from the asset library. Setup images are the exception: character sheets are always portrait and location and prop images are always widescreen, whatever the project is. Choosing 16:9 costs the same as 9:16, because video is priced by the second and not by the frame. Vertical or landscape.

If your channel also posts vertical Shorts, make the Short as its own 9:16 project from the same script rather than cropping the wide one. Faceless YouTube channel with an AI drama series and an AI anime series for YouTube show how a channel uses both shapes.

Length: what one episode can be

Length comes from two places. The type you choose in step 1 sets the longest an episode may run, and the segments inside it set the grain.

A longer cut is more segments, joined: a second costs the same whether it is the first or the four-hundredth, and joining adds 1 credit a second of the finished length. One minute of finished video on the default tier comes to 660 credits, about $4.11 at the lowest credit price, before any retake. The joined episode is made of hard cuts; the joins are where continuity has to be planned in the script. Short Drama, TV Series or Film and how to make an AI video longer than one minute go further.

Picture quality: draft low, finish once

Resolution is a property of the tier, not a separate setting, and the picker shows each tier's resolution next to its price per second. The cheapest tier delivers at 480P; the steps above it reach 720P and 1080P, and the top tier is 2K. For a watch-page video, the usual habit is to draft every segment on the cheapest tier, fix the text and the sheets, then generate the keepers once on the tier you want to publish. When every segment of an episode comes from the same tier, joining copies the streams and nothing is re-compressed; mix tiers in one episode and the join re-encodes onto a single canvas, which costs a generation of quality. So re-shoot all of an episode's keepers at the final tier, not some of them. Draft low, finish high and What comes out.

Download gives the original-quality file. The site's own player streams a lighter copy at the same resolution, so judge sharpness on the downloaded file, not in the browser. Download: the original versus the play version.

Cover, captions and music

Cover. In step 2, the Cover art tab paints three poster options from your lead characters, with the title drawn into the picture; both a landscape 16:9 and a portrait 9:16 version come with the one you pick, and the landscape one is the one to download for a watch page. The first set of three is free on your first drama; each extra size (3:4, 1:1, 4:3) is priced as one image. Keep the title to 12 characters or fewer and check its spelling on each option, because the image model draws it. The site does not make thumbnails as such; the poster is a starting point for one. Promo cover posters.

Captions. On accounts that have bought credits or a plan at least once, exporting a whole episode with Add subtitles ticked gives a burned-in version and a plain-text SRT file with times; the words are your script's lines, so invented names come out as you spelled them. The SRT is a standard file you can upload with the video. Subtitles are free, with a daily limit per account. Add subtitles to your AI drama.

Music. Every episode is scored automatically and the download carries the score. A Music switch turns it off and gives the dialogue version, which is the one to take into an editor if you are laying your own track. Background music in an AI short drama.

Two different labels

Two things get called a label, and a YouTube upload can involve both. The first is on the file: a small SceneMixer AI badge in the bottom-right corner of the picture, drawn into the pixels, and a line of AI-generated-content metadata written into the file. A free account's videos always carry it; members' new clips come without the badge by default, and the switch beside the model picker applies to clips generated afterwards. A share link always shows it. The AI badge switch.

The second is YouTube's own disclosure step in the upload flow, which is the uploader's to complete and which the badge does not replace. This site's answer page on labels, read on October 14, 2026, summarises YouTube's rule this way: creators disclose when AI meaningfully alters or generates photorealistic content; photorealistic uploads can get a label in the player, stylised or animated ones a note in the description, and disclosing does not limit a video's audience or its eligibility to earn. Rules change, so check YouTube's current page before you upload. This page is not legal advice. Do AI-generated videos need a label or a watermark? has the sources, and can you monetize AI videos on YouTube and TikTok? covers the earnings question.

What the tool does not do for a YouTube upload

It does not upload for you: the share menu lists social sites for sending a link, and YouTube is not one of them. It does not write a title, description, tags or chapters. It is not a timeline editor, so an intro, an end screen or a cold open with a title card are added in a video editor after you download the file. A SceneMixer link is fine for sending a preview to a collaborator, but a video uploaded to YouTube itself is the one that plays there.

FAQ

Updated November 2, 2026