Guide Video Modes

Video Modes

A Video Mode decides how your AI Video Lecture teaches. The same PDF, the same topic, the same notes — re-taught a few different ways. Where the length setting controls how long the lecture runs, the mode controls how it looks, feels, and sounds.

You pick a mode in the customize step of the video lecture creator, right after you choose your source material. On a paid plan a new lecture starts on Freestyle, where the AI reads your source and picks the format that suits it; on Free it starts on Standard. Either way, every mode is listed and the one you choose always wins. Your last choice is remembered for next time.

Why Modes Exist

Different material — and different audiences — call for different teaching. A dense derivation is best worked through on a whiteboard. A policy you are turning into onboarding wants plain words and a gentle pace. Instead of one fixed lecture style, you choose the teacher that fits the subject, the audience, and the moment.

If a lecture doesn't land the way you hoped, switching the mode and regenerating is often a bigger improvement than tweaking the prompt.

The Five Modes

Standard (the Free starting point)

A polished, editorial lesson that chooses the visual treatment concept by concept. Standard is the best all-rounder when you want a topic explained clearly, and it is where a new lecture starts on Free.

Standard changes visual structure as the lesson develops: selective generated illustrations, relationship diagrams, worked equations, processes, comparisons, paths, grids, charts, and asymmetric layouts can all appear in one coherent lesson. Motion and semantic transitions follow the teaching beat without changing narration timing, and the director selects a fully composed moment as the video's cover frame.

Scenes also change more often than they used to, equations are laid out to fit within the frame instead of running past its edges, and long labels wrap onto a second line rather than shrinking, so a dense document stays readable all the way through.

Illustrated

A full-length landscape lesson told through hand-drawn illustrations on a clean white background. A recurring ink character acts out each idea while sparse handwritten labels and visual metaphors make the explanation memorable. Pick Illustrated when a concept benefits from visual storytelling rather than a traditional slide-like lecture.

Short

A fast vertical explainer in a short video format for quick review. Short distills the source to one compelling thread, pairs it with full-screen visuals, and keeps the narration focused. Pick it when you want a phone-friendly recap instead of a full lecture.

Manim Math Animation

Precise animated derivations built with Manim. The mode first matches source-grounded concepts to vetted scenes for derivatives, integrals, function transforms, equation derivations, vector fields, and the Pythagorean theorem, so a topic that fits opens with a polished, source-grounded animated scene. When a topic needs a different mathematical visual, the same Video request continues through the flexible math renderer and uses the regular math-video style instead of failing or creating a separate artifact — so the lecture finishes either way. Best for calculus, physics, statistics, quantitative finance, and any technical topic where the working matters as much as the answer.

Freestyle (the paid starting point)

Freestyle reads your source and designs the lecture around it, choosing the visual style and animation approach that best serves the material instead of following a fixed look — kinetic type for a punchy argument, a whiteboard for a worked problem, a clean diagram sequence for a process, or something in between. It is where a new lecture starts on a paid plan, and it is the right pick whenever you would rather hand the format decision to the AI than make it yourself.

Mode Availability

Every Video Mode is available on every plan. Short always renders in its own short video format with no length control; the other modes (Standard, Illustrated, Manim Math Animation, Freestyle) use the lecture length setting — a fixed 2-minute lecture on Free, or a target length up to 45 minutes on paid plans. Free includes one lifetime AI Creation Credit; Premium replaces that with 10 AI Creation Credits each week, while Laureate includes 80 AI Creation Credits each week. Most models cost 1 credit per creation, Claude Sonnet 5 and Kimi K3 cost 2, and Frontier models GPT 5.6 Sol and Claude Opus 5 cost 3. Paid plans also unlock 1080p rendering, watermark-free output, and MP4 downloads. See Plans and Limits for the full breakdown.

Picking the Right Mode

  • Not sure where to start? Leave it where it lands — Freestyle on a paid plan, Standard on Free. Both handle any topic cleanly.
  • Want a clear, editorial explanation you can predict? Standard.
  • Want a hand-drawn visual story with memorable metaphors? Illustrated.
  • Want a fast, phone-friendly recap? Short.
  • Working through proofs, equations, or derivations? Manim Math Animation.
  • Want the AI to pick the visual approach? Freestyle.

Not sure? Generate the same topic in two modes and compare — short lectures are quick to re-run, and the difference between modes is dramatic.

Modes and the Rest of the Lecture

Choosing a mode doesn't change anything else about your video. Every mode still ships with chapter navigation, a searchable transcript, synced captions in the generation language, interactive question checkpoints, AI chat about the video, and one-click flashcard generation. The mode only shapes the teaching style and visuals — every other tool comes with every lecture.

For everything else about creating and watching video lectures, see the full AI Video Lectures guide.

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