README.md

---
license: other
license_name: minimax-h3-community-license
license_link: https://huggingface.co/MiniMaxAI/MiniMax-H3/blob/main/LICENSE
base_model: MiniMaxAI/MiniMax-H3
base_model_relation: adapter
pipeline_tag: image-text-to-video
tags:
- lora
- video
- text-to-video
- vhs
- retro
- 1980s
- style
- minimax-h3
---

# vh5tape — a worn-VHS look for MiniMax H3

A style LoRA that makes H3 footage look like it was recorded off 1980s broadcast
television onto a VHS tape that has seen better days — soft smeared detail, chroma
bleed, tracking noise, head-switching bands at the frame edge, and (because H3
trains audio jointly) the matching muffled mono sound, tape hiss and warble.

The damage is a **prompt-controlled dial** with three trained levels, from a gentle
analog glow to a tape the VCR can barely hold onto.

<video controls playsinline width="720" src="https://huggingface.co/KennethFal/vh5tape-vhs-lora-minimax-h3/resolve/main/samples/vh5-trailer.mp4"></video>

## Gallery

All clips are raw single takes at 480P / 4:3 — none of this content was in the
training data.

<table>
<tr>
<td><video controls muted loop playsinline width="350" src="https://huggingface.co/KennethFal/vh5tape-vhs-lora-minimax-h3/resolve/main/samples/cartoon-robot.mp4"></video></td>
<td><video controls muted loop playsinline width="350" src="https://huggingface.co/KennethFal/vh5tape-vhs-lora-minimax-h3/resolve/main/samples/news-anchor.mp4"></video></td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td><video controls muted loop playsinline width="350" src="https://huggingface.co/KennethFal/vh5tape-vhs-lora-minimax-h3/resolve/main/samples/game-arcade.mp4"></video></td>
<td><video controls muted loop playsinline width="350" src="https://huggingface.co/KennethFal/vh5tape-vhs-lora-minimax-h3/resolve/main/samples/movie-horror.mp4"></video></td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td><video controls muted loop playsinline width="350" src="https://huggingface.co/KennethFal/vh5tape-vhs-lora-minimax-h3/resolve/main/samples/commercial-toy.mp4"></video></td>
<td><video controls muted loop playsinline width="350" src="https://huggingface.co/KennethFal/vh5tape-vhs-lora-minimax-h3/resolve/main/samples/musicvideo.mp4"></video></td>
</tr>
</table>

## Prompting

Prompt the way the model was trained: **trigger first, damage tier second, scene third.**

```
vh5tape, badly damaged VHS tape with heavy tracking errors and distortion. A loud
1980s local used car commercial: a salesman in a plaid suit shouts at a car lot
with strings of pennant flags and a spinning price sign, cheesy synthesizer
jingle, echoing announcer voice.
```

### The damage dial

| level | phrase |
|---|---|
| light | `lightly worn VHS tape with slight analog noise` |
| medium | `worn VHS tape recording with visible tape damage` |
| heavy | `badly damaged VHS tape with heavy tracking errors and distortion` |

### Tips

- **Trigger**: `vh5tape` — put it at the very start of the prompt.
- **Prompt expansion**: the LoRA was trained through H3's caption format, and the
  `balanced` expansion mode preserves the trigger and damage phrases — safe to keep on.
- **Scale**: `1.0` for the full look; `0.7–0.9` softens the wear if heavy prompts
  overshoot; up to `~1.5` pushes toward barely-watchable tape (fun for horror).
- **Sound comes along for free**: describe the audio ("muffled mono audio",
  "canned laughter", "cheesy jingle") and it renders appropriately tape-worn.
- **Dialogue**: give characters short explicit quoted lines
  (`the host says: "It slices, it dices!"`) — they come through near-verbatim.
- Period set dressing helps: wood paneling, studio lighting, 4:3, era wardrobe.

## Recipe (fal)

Works on the H3 and H3-Max LoRA endpoints
(`minimax/h3/text-to-video/lora`, `minimax/h3-max/text-to-video/lora`) and their
image-to-video LoRA siblings:

```json
{
  "prompt": "vh5tape, worn VHS tape recording with visible tape damage. A 1980s ...",
  "loras": [{ "path": "<url to vh5tape.safetensors>", "scale": 1.0 }],
  "resolution": "480P",
  "aspect_ratio": "4:3",
  "duration": 15,
  "prompt_expansion_mode": "balanced"
}
```

480P / 4:3 is the period-correct sweet spot; the style carries fine to higher
resolutions if you want clean pixels of a dirty tape.

## Training

Trained with fal's MiniMax H3 t2v trainer (rank 32, 5,000 steps, 4:3, joint
video+audio objective) on a small hand-curated set of four-second clips of period
broadcast material — sitcoms, soap operas, commercials, news and station
sign-offs — each captioned with its content and one of the three damage-tier
phrases above. The 5,000-step checkpoint beat its 2k/3k/4k/6k siblings in blind
A/B testing; more steps past 5k made the damage *tamer*, not heavier.

## Get the weights

| file | what |
|---|---|
| [`vh5tape.safetensors`](./vh5tape.safetensors) | the LoRA, rank 32, 5,000 steps |

Made for **H3-TV** — a 1970s portable CRT being rebuilt to play an endless,
slightly wrong 1980s broadcast day.