Terms: the words of AI video pipelines
Each page explains one term as the documentation uses it and lists the readings where it appears. As of 2026-09-25.
Explanations follow how the documentation uses a term.
Where two tools use a term differently, the page says so.
The terms are listed alphabetically; each term page links to its neighbours.
Each term page ends with the readings where the word appears, linked to the documentation.
1Pages in this section
- Agent skill — Agent skill in AI video pipelines: an agent skill is a packaged set of instructions and commands that teaches a coding agent how to use one tool.
- Aggregator API — An aggregator API offers many providers' models behind one set of calls and one bill, instead of a separate account with each maker.
- Alpha channel — Alpha channel in AI video pipelines: an alpha channel stores transparency, so a subject can sit over other footage without a separate mask.
- API — An API, an application programming interface, lets software send a request to a model and get the result back without anyone opening the app.
- Async job — An asynchronous job is a request that returns an ID straight away and finishes later.
- Command line — A command-line tool runs a service from a terminal or a script, so generation can be part of a shell pipeline or a scheduled job.
- Data retention — Data retention is how long a tool keeps the inputs and outputs of a job before deleting them, which sets how long a result can be fetched again.
- Expiring link — An expiring link is a download address that stops working after a set time, commonly used by APIs to hand back generated files.
- EXR — EXR is an image format used in visual effects that stores a wide range of brightness and colour, often at 16 or 32 bits per channel, frame by frame.
- MCP — MCP, the Model Context Protocol, is a way for an AI agent to call a tool's functions directly, so a request in plain language can start a generation.
- MP4 and H.264 — MP4 and H.264 in AI video pipelines: MP4 is a container file; H.264 is the most widely supported way of compressing the video inside it.
- Polling — Polling in AI video pipelines: polling means asking an API for a job's status at intervals until it reports success or failure, then fetching the result.
- Presigned URL — A presigned URL is a download address with permission built into it, so anyone holding it can fetch the file until it stops working.
- SDK — SDK in AI video pipelines: an SDK, a software development kit, is a library a maker publishes so its API can be called from a programming language.
- Subtitle files — Subtitle files such as SRT and VTT hold text and timing apart from the picture, so captions can be switched on, translated or corrected.
- Webhook — A webhook is an address on the caller's own server that a tool calls when a job changes state, so the result arrives without anyone asking for it.
- XML export — An XML export writes the structure of an edit, clips, order and timing, into a file an editing suite can read, so a cut can be rebuilt elsewhere.
2Where a drama generator fits
Read against “Terms”, this is how SceneMixer describes the matching stage of its own pipeline:
SceneMixer generates each character once as a full-body reference sheet — 9:16, plain background, directional key light, identity features written before any technical instruction — and then attaches crops of that sheet to every shot the character appears in.
SceneMixer, AI Character Sheet Generator (read 2026-10-13)
Every character comes out of the script read with a voice described in words — age, weight, pace, where it sits.
SceneMixer, How Character Voices Work (read 2026-10-13)