Midjourney brings HD video to Standard users

Anyone who generates AI video knows that the scariest part isn't a bad output, it's watching your credit balance evaporate after a single prompt.

Midjourney just pushed a fresh batch of quality-of-life updates based on community feedback. The headliner is broader access to high-definition video, but the team attached an unusually frank warning: it gets expensive fast.

HD video for Standard tier, plus a cost-saving trick

The biggest feature drop is that HD video generation is now open to Standard Plan subscribers.

Getting higher resolution footage without upgrading to the highest subscription tiers is a huge win. That said, Midjourney explicitly warned users to tread lightly because HD rendering chews through compute.

To help keep your balance in check, Midjourney also added smaller batch sizes.

Instead of being locked into generating 4 videos at once, you can now toggle settings or type `--bs 1` or `--bs 2` directly into your prompt. Generating one or two clips at a time cuts your run costs by 4x and 2x respectively. While Midjourney still recommends keeping the default 4-batch setting for best pickings, budget-conscious creators finally have an off-ramp.

Dedicated moodboards and fewer blocked runs

The update also fixes several daily workflow headaches.

Moodboards now have their own dedicated page in the sidebar navigation. They remain the core tool for locking down a project's style: highly varied boards yield diverse imagery, while tighter boards keep visual aesthetics strictly focused.

Video thumbnails also got a tweak. Job cards will now display the last frame of the video instead of earlier frames, making it easier to distinguish clips in a gallery view. Midjourney noted this does not work great for loops, so they plan to transition thumbnails to middle frames down the road.

Finally, the team upgraded video moderation accuracy, which should result in far fewer falsely blocked jobs.

Why it matters

AI video experimentation has long suffered from an aggressive tax on failure.

Being forced to spin up four variations every time you want to test motion dynamics is brutal on your wallet. Letting users generate a single video at `--bs 1` is basically giving budget creators a low-cost prototyping mode.

Bringing HD video down to the Standard tier is a sharp defensive play. Competition in the dedicated AI video market is fierce, and Midjourney needs to give its massive core subscriber base a reason to stay in-house rather than paying for standalone video tools.

We think Midjourney was smart to prioritize workflow friction over flashy marketing claims. Fixing false moderation flags, isolating moodboards, and adding batch controls address the real daily complaints of actual users.

The catch is managing expectations around HD credit burn. Even with batch controls, running high-resolution clips can drain a standard allowance in minutes, so user friction around fast-depleting fast hours is likely Midjourney's next hurdle.