Kickstarter: the prototype still is the contract

I2V the real prototype. T2V is a different product to backers. A campaign video is not a mood about "our device on marble." It is the object on the bench: the port you actually cut, the seam you actually tooled, the colourway you will ship. If the clip shows a slimmer housing or a badge that is not on the unit in Update #3, the video is a second product.

The still you already have — the desk photo, the CNC plate, the enclosure with the lid off — is the contract. Motion is allowed. A prettier cousin is not.

The still you shot is the pledge

Backers pause. They compare the campaign loop to the hardware in the rewards table. Text-to-video invents a consumer gadget: a plausible silhouette, a generic USB-C. That is a different SKU. It is also a different promise.

Seedance 2.5 Image to Video is the still-to-motion row: one approved still in, a continuous clip out, up to 720p, four to thirty seconds, native audio, optional last frame. Image required. Seedance I2V is still the still-to-motion job is the router. This page is only the prototype.

Image-to-video starts from the file you upload. Frame one is the prototype photo. Prompt camera and physics — a slow orbit that keeps the port facing us — not a second housing. Ugly is allowed. A visible screw or a scuffed jig, if that is the unit, is the plate. Lock the still before you spend on motion. Then buy seconds.

A paragraph is a different product

Text-to-video has no plate. You asked for "our portable synthesizer rotating on a workbench," and the model decides whose synthesizer. Average is not the prototype in the pledge manager. Average is a device you cannot mail.

Do not prompt "exact enclosure, our USB-C on the left" as a text-to-video job and hope the model honours a photo you never attached. Make the still. Then animate it.

If you need the same hardware in a scene you never shot, that is not I2V. Restaging while holding shape, colour, and label is the AI product video generator: reference-to-video, photographs of the real object as ground truth. Three or four clean angles beat one cluttered hero. Check the ports at 100% before you keep a take.

Do not mix the contracts. I2V from the bench still. R2V when the room has to change and the hardware must not. The split is image-to-video vs reference. T2V for neither.

Camera around this hardware, nothing else

Once the prototype still is locked, the generate may move the camera and land on a second approved still of the same unit — open chassis as first frame, closed enclosure as last. A last frame of a later revision is a morph of the pledge.

It may not thin the housing, hide a seam, or add a screen the BOM does not have. Those are claims. Keep the object large in frame. Ports are postage-stamp failures. Thirty seconds in one pass holds a prototype; stitching four short text-to-video clips is how the port drifts. 720p is the ceiling on this endpoint.

Lifestyle around the hardware is a split file. I2V for the prototype. A talking model for the founder, if you have a founder. Comp them.

Pause on the port. Is it the prototype you would put in the rewards table? Yes: ship. No: you used text-to-video, or you first-last'd two builds. Go back to the still.

FAQ

Can I text-to-video "our exact prototype rotating" and skip the photo?

You can. You will get a device. It will not be the device often enough to run next to the pledge. Seedance I2V exists because the still is the spec.

When is the product video generator the right second row?

When the hardware must stay yours and the scene is new — a gig, a kitchen, a 9:16 crop of a unit you shot on the bench. That is reference-to-video. The campaign hero from the shop photo is I2V. Do not feed a finished bench shot to R2V and ask it to "just add motion." It will restage.

Do I need a last frame of the painted enclosure?

Only when you have a second approved still of the same build and the shot travels from open chassis to closed. A single hero still with a slow move is the usual job. A last frame of a later revision is a different product.

The prototype is ugly. Should I generate a prettier one?

Not if the prettier one is not what you will ship. I2V from the real unit. If you need a cleaner plate, shoot a cleaner plate of the same hardware. A restyled lie is still a lie to backers.