MiniMax's H3 Tops Video Editing Charts and Goes Open-Source
MiniMax H3 tops video editing benchmarks with native 2K, audio, and instruction-based editing — and open weights are coming
- #1 Video Editing: MiniMax H3 tops Artificial Analysis leaderboard for video editing, ranks top 3 in text-to-video and image-to-video.
- Native 2K + audio: Generates 5-15 second clips at 2560x1440 with synchronized stereo sound in a single pass.
- Omni-reference: Accepts up to 9 images, 3 video clips, and 3 audio clips per request for consistent characters and style across shots.
- Instruction-based editing: Edit finished clips in natural language without regenerating from scratch — a rare capability at this quality level.
- Pricing: $0.13/sec ($7.80/min) for 2K with audio, undercutting Kling 3.0 ($20.16/min) and Seedance 2.0 ($22.45/min).
- Open weights incoming: MiniMax plans to release weights under a community license (free for orgs under $20M revenue), which would make it the strongest open-weights video model, ahead of LTX-2.3.
MiniMax H3 just landed at the top of the Artificial Analysis video leaderboard for editing and placed top 3 in both text-to-video and image-to-video. The successor to the Hailuo family, it brings a genuinely different architecture: a single model that reads text, images, video clips, and audio, then outputs video with synchronized sound in one pass. MiniMax also plans to release the weights publicly, which would make it the strongest open-weights video model by a wide margin.
What H3 actually is
MiniMax H3, also called Hailuo 3.0, is the latest flagship video model from MiniMax, the lab behind Hailuo 02 and Hailuo 2.3. It generates videos up to 15 seconds long at 2K resolution with native stereo sound. That is a meaningful jump from Hailuo 2.3, which topped out at roughly 10 seconds at 1080p.
Beyond the resolution and length increase, H3 adds two capabilities Hailuo 2.3 lacked entirely: omni-reference (up to 9 images, 3 video clips, and 3 audio clips per generation) and instruction-based editing. Clips can also be extended to roughly 30 seconds via a separate Extend tool.
The two features that change production workflows
The resolution numbers are table stakes. The more consequential additions are the ones that address real friction in multi-shot AI video production.