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RESEARCH PAPER / 2026-03-17

Diffusion Models for Joint Audio-Video Generation

Alejandro Paredes La Torre

Duke University · arXiv

Affiliations: Duke University

Abstract

Multimodal generative models have shown remarkable progress in single-modality video and audio synthesis, yet truly joint audio-video generation remains an open challenge. In this paper, I explore four key contributions to advance this field. First, I release two high-quality, paired audio-video datasets. The datasets consisting on 13 hours of video-game clips and 64 hours of concert performances, each segmented into consistent 34-second samples to facilitate reproducible research. Second, I train the MM-Diffusion architecture from scratch on our datasets, demonstrating its ability to produce semantically coherent audio-video pairs and quantitatively evaluating alignment on rapid actions and musical cues. Third, I investigate joint latent diffusion by leveraging pretrained video and audio encoder-decoders, uncovering challenges and inconsistencies in the multimodal decoding stage. Finally, I propose a sequential two-step text-to-audio-video generation pipeline: first generating video, then conditioning on both the video output and the original prompt to synthesize temporally synchronized audio. My experiments show that this modular approach yields high-fidelity generations of audio video generation.

The following analysis is generated by AI and may contain errors. It is separate from the authors’ abstract and is not peer review.

Research summary

This paper presents a significant advancement in the field of joint audio-video generation through the introduction of novel methodologies and high-quality datasets. The contributions are well-aligned with current challenges in multimodal generative models, making it a valuable addition to the literature.

Methodology

The paper proposes a novel MM-Diffusion architecture trained from scratch on newly released datasets, which is a significant methodological contribution. The sequential two-step text-to-audio-video generation pipeline is particularly innovative, as it addresses the challenge of synchronizing audio and video outputs effectively. The use of pretrained encoder-decoder models for joint latent diffusion adds depth to the methodology, although the paper could benefit from a more detailed explanation of the architecture and the training process.

Results & evaluation

The experiments are well-structured, utilizing high-quality datasets that enhance the validity of the results. The quantitative evaluation of alignment between audio and video is a strong point, although the paper could improve by including more comprehensive qualitative assessments, such as user studies or comparisons with existing state-of-the-art methods. The results demonstrate high fidelity in generated outputs, which is promising for future applications.

Reproducibility

The paper mentions the release of datasets and code, which is crucial for reproducibility. However, it lacks detailed implementation specifics, such as hyperparameter settings and training configurations, which would aid other researchers in replicating the experiments effectively.

Limitations

One limitation is the reliance on the quality of the datasets, which may not generalize well across different types of audio-video content. Additionally, the paper does not address potential biases in the datasets, nor does it explore the scalability of the proposed methods to larger or more diverse datasets. The challenges uncovered in the multimodal decoding stage could also benefit from more in-depth analysis.

Broader impact

The potential applications of this research are significant, particularly in entertainment, gaming, and educational content generation. By improving joint audio-video generation, the work could enhance user experiences in multimedia applications. However, ethical considerations around content generation and potential misuse should be addressed in future work. This paper presents a significant advancement in the field of joint audio-video generation through the introduction of novel methodologies and high-quality datasets. The contributions are well-aligned with current challenges in multimodal generative models, making it a valuable addition to the literature.

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