Stable Video Diffusion: video generator — what it does and what you need to run it

Stable Video Diffusion is an open source generative model from Stability AI that solves the task of turning a static image into a short video (image-to-video). The tool is aimed at researchers and developers who are ready to work with code directly and run generation on their own hardware.

What it does

• Takes a single image as input and generates a video sequence based on it.
• Implemented as the stable-video-diffusion-img2vid-xt model, available on Hugging Face.
• The code is distributed under the MIT license, which permits free use and modification.
• Integrates with the diffusers library.
• The authors position the repository as a set of generative models, not as a finished application with a graphical interface.

What you need to run it

• Platform: local run. No cloud version is specified in the fact sheet.
• Memory and storage: the largest model weights file takes up 8.9 GB, and the full set of files is 30.4 GB. Loading the model into GPU memory will require a corresponding amount of VRAM.
• Runtime environment: Python. As described by the author, the code is tested on version 3.10. Verbatim from the description: «NOTE: This is tested under python3.10. For other python versions, you might encounter version conflicts.»
• License: code — MIT, model weights — other (the terms of use for the weights are defined separately; the authors do not provide details in the fact sheet).
• Code: available in the repository github.com/Stability-AI/generative-models. The last change was recorded on December 16, 2025. The latest release is version 0.1.0.

Who it is for

The tool is designed for technically savvy users: researchers, developers, and enthusiasts familiar with Python and the diffusers ecosystem. It suits those who need image-to-video generation with the ability to fine-tune and modify the code.

It will not suit those looking for a ready-made application with an interface, a cloud service without the need for local installation, or a solution that runs on low-power machines without a discrete GPU with a large amount of memory. It is also worth noting that the Python version is strictly tied to 3.10 — other versions may cause dependency conflicts.

Stable Video Diffusion is a low-level tool in the form of code and model weights. To work with it, you will need to set up the runtime environment yourself, download tens of gigabytes of data, and figure out the specifics of running it. The authors provide no guarantees of compatibility beyond the tested environment.