V2M-Zero: Zero-Pair Time-Aligned Video-to-Music Generation

TL;DR

V2M-Zero generates time-aligned music from video using event curves, achieving significant improvements in audio quality and beat alignment across datasets.

cs.CV 🔴 Advanced 2026-03-12 14 views
Yan-Bo Lin Jonah Casebeer Long Mai Aniruddha Mahapatra Gedas Bertasius Nicholas J. Bryan
video generation music generation temporal synchronization deep learning cross-modal

Key Findings

Methodology

V2M-Zero employs a zero-pair video-to-music generation approach, capturing temporal structures within each modality using event curves computed from pretrained music and video encoders. These curves measure temporal changes independently, providing comparable representations across modalities. The training strategy involves fine-tuning a text-to-music model on music-event curves and substituting video-event curves at inference, eliminating the need for cross-modal training or paired data.

Key Results

  • On the OES-Pub, MovieGenBench-Music, and AIST++ datasets, V2M-Zero achieved 5-21% higher audio quality, 13-15% better semantic alignment, 21-52% improved temporal synchronization, and 28% higher beat alignment on dance videos compared to paired-data baselines.
  • Results from a large crowd-source subjective listening test confirmed V2M-Zero's superior performance in audio quality and temporal synchronization.
  • V2M-Zero effectively generates video-to-music without cross-modal supervision, leveraging within-modality features for temporal alignment.

Significance

The significance of V2M-Zero lies in its ability to address the limitations of existing text-to-music models in temporal synchronization. By utilizing within-modality temporal structures rather than relying on cross-modal supervision, V2M-Zero achieves significant performance improvements in video-to-music generation. This approach holds substantial academic value and opens new possibilities for practical applications in music generation, particularly in scenarios requiring precise temporal alignment.

Technical Contribution

V2M-Zero's technical contributions include its innovative training strategy and the use of event curves. Unlike state-of-the-art methods, V2M-Zero does not rely on cross-modal paired data but achieves temporal synchronization through within-modality temporal changes. This method offers new theoretical guarantees and engineering possibilities for video-to-music generation.

Novelty

V2M-Zero's novelty lies in its use of event curves for video-to-music generation, achieving temporal synchronization without cross-modal paired data. This approach fundamentally differs from existing methods, offering a new perspective on addressing the longstanding challenge of temporal alignment.

Limitations

  • V2M-Zero may struggle with perfect temporal synchronization in complex video scenes, where event changes are too intricate for the model to capture effectively.
  • The method relies on the quality of pretrained music and video encoders, which, if suboptimal, could affect the final generation quality.
  • In specific music styles or video types, the model's performance may not match its performance in general scenarios.

Future Work

Future research directions include: 1) improving event curve computation methods to enhance temporal synchronization in complex scenes; 2) exploring temporal structures in other modalities to expand V2M-Zero's applicability; 3) integrating more contextual information, such as video emotion or theme, to generate more expressive music.

AI Executive Summary

Generating music that aligns temporally with video events has been a significant challenge in the field of video-to-music generation. Existing text-to-music models often lack fine-grained temporal control, resulting in music that fails to match video events accurately. V2M-Zero offers a novel solution to this problem.

V2M-Zero is a zero-pair video-to-music generation approach that leverages event curves to capture temporal structures within music and video modalities. These curves measure temporal changes within each modality, providing comparable representations across modalities, enabling temporal synchronization without the need for cross-modal training or paired data.

The technical principle behind this method is straightforward yet effective: fine-tune a text-to-music model on music-event curves, then substitute video-event curves during inference. This approach allows V2M-Zero to achieve significant performance improvements across multiple datasets, including audio quality, semantic alignment, temporal synchronization, and beat alignment.

Experimental results demonstrate that V2M-Zero achieves 5-21% higher audio quality, 13-15% better semantic alignment, 21-52% improved temporal synchronization, and 28% higher beat alignment on dance videos across the OES-Pub, MovieGenBench-Music, and AIST++ datasets. These results are validated through a large crowd-source subjective listening test.

The significance of V2M-Zero extends beyond academic impact, offering new possibilities for practical applications in music generation. Future research can further improve event curve computation methods, explore temporal structures in other modalities, and integrate more contextual information to generate more expressive music.

Deep Analysis

Background

Video-to-music generation is a cross-modal research area focused on generating music that temporally aligns with video events. Traditional methods often rely on paired cross-modal data and complex supervised learning to achieve temporal synchronization. However, these methods typically perform poorly in handling complex temporal changes and are heavily dependent on data. With the advancement of deep learning, researchers have begun exploring more flexible and efficient methods to address this longstanding challenge.

Core Problem

Existing text-to-music models face significant challenges in generating music that aligns temporally with video events. The primary issue is the lack of fine-grained temporal control, resulting in music that fails to match video events accurately. Additionally, traditional methods' reliance on paired data limits their flexibility and scalability in practical applications.

Innovation

V2M-Zero's core innovation lies in its use of event curves to achieve video-to-music temporal synchronization without cross-modal paired data. The innovations include: 1) leveraging within-modality temporal structures for synchronization; 2) providing comparable representations across modalities through event curves; 3) simplifying the training strategy to enable efficient video-to-music generation without cross-modal training.

Methodology

The methodology of V2M-Zero is detailed as follows:

  • �� Use pretrained music and video encoders to compute event curves, capturing temporal structures within each modality.
  • �� Measure temporal changes within each modality independently, providing comparable representations across modalities.
  • �� Fine-tune a text-to-music model on music-event curves.
  • �� Substitute video-event curves during inference, eliminating the need for cross-modal training or paired data.
  • �� This approach enables temporal synchronization in video-to-music generation.

Experiments

The experimental design includes testing V2M-Zero on the OES-Pub, MovieGenBench-Music, and AIST++ datasets, comparing its performance against paired-data baselines. Key experimental metrics include audio quality, semantic alignment, temporal synchronization, and beat alignment. Ablation studies were conducted to verify the role of event curves in temporal synchronization.

Results

Experimental results show that V2M-Zero achieves significant performance improvements across multiple datasets. Specifically, it achieves 5-21% higher audio quality, 13-15% better semantic alignment, 21-52% improved temporal synchronization, and 28% higher beat alignment on dance videos. These results are validated through a large crowd-source subjective listening test.

Applications

V2M-Zero's application scenarios include film scoring, video editing, and game music generation. Its characteristic of not requiring paired data makes it more flexible and scalable in practical applications, particularly in scenarios requiring precise temporal alignment.

Limitations & Outlook

Despite V2M-Zero's outstanding performance in many aspects, it may struggle with perfect temporal synchronization in complex video scenes. Additionally, the method relies on the quality of pretrained music and video encoders, which, if suboptimal, could affect the final generation quality. Future research can further improve event curve computation methods to enhance temporal synchronization in complex scenes.

Plain Language Accessible to non-experts

Imagine you're in a kitchen cooking a meal. You need to add the right ingredients at the right time to ensure the dish tastes perfect. V2M-Zero is like a smart chef who can automatically create delicious dishes without needing a detailed recipe. In video-to-music generation, V2M-Zero analyzes the internal structures of video and music to determine when to add which musical elements to achieve perfect synchronization with video events. Just like a chef adjusts seasonings by tasting and observing, V2M-Zero captures temporal changes through event curves, enabling music to synchronize with video over time.

ELI14 Explained like you're 14

Hey there! Ever wondered what it would be like if videos could automatically create music? That's what V2M-Zero does! It's like a super-smart DJ that can create the perfect music to match the rhythm and changes in a video. Imagine playing a game where every action has its own music—how cool is that? V2M-Zero analyzes the rhythm inside videos and music, like playing a puzzle game, putting each music piece in the right spot. This way, your video gets its own soundtrack—awesome, right?

Glossary

V2M-Zero

A zero-pair video-to-music generation method that achieves temporal synchronization using event curves.

V2M-Zero is the core method proposed in this paper.

Event Curves

Curves that provide comparable representations across modalities by measuring temporal changes within each modality.

Event curves are used to capture temporal structures in video and music.

Temporal Synchronization

The process of ensuring music aligns temporally with video events.

V2M-Zero achieves temporal synchronization using event curves.

Cross-modal

Involving interaction or conversion between multiple modalities, such as video and music.

V2M-Zero does not require cross-modal paired data.

Audio Quality

A metric for assessing the sound quality and clarity of generated music.

Experimental results show significant improvements in audio quality with V2M-Zero.

Semantic Alignment

The process of ensuring generated music matches the semantic content of video.

V2M-Zero demonstrates superior semantic alignment.

Beat Alignment

The process of ensuring music beats synchronize with video actions.

Beat alignment is crucial in dance videos.

Pretrained Encoder

A model trained on large datasets used for feature extraction.

V2M-Zero uses pretrained music and video encoders.

Ablation Study

An evaluation method that assesses the impact of removing or replacing parts of a model on overall performance.

Ablation studies were conducted to verify the role of event curves.

Crowd-source Subjective Test

A large-scale user test to evaluate model performance.

V2M-Zero's results were validated through crowd-source subjective testing.

Open Questions Unanswered questions from this research

  • 1 How can more precise temporal synchronization be achieved in more complex video scenes? Current methods may perform poorly in handling complex event changes, necessitating further research to improve event curve computation methods.
  • 2 How does V2M-Zero perform in specific music styles or video types? Is there a need for specialized adjustments or optimizations for different styles or types?
  • 3 What is the performance of V2M-Zero in handling real-time video streams? Are additional optimizations needed to improve real-time performance and response speed?
  • 4 How can more contextual information (e.g., emotion or theme) be integrated to generate more expressive and emotionally resonant music?
  • 5 What is the performance of V2M-Zero without pretrained encoders? Is it possible to develop a version that does not rely on pretrained models?
  • 6 How applicable is V2M-Zero across different languages and cultural backgrounds? Is cultural adaptation needed to enhance global application effectiveness?
  • 7 What is the computational efficiency of V2M-Zero on resource-constrained devices? Is model compression or optimization needed to adapt to these environments?

Applications

Immediate Applications

Film Scoring

V2M-Zero can be used to automatically generate scores that synchronize with film scenes, improving production efficiency and reducing costs.

Video Editing

Video editors can use V2M-Zero to automatically generate background music for their videos, enhancing emotional expression.

Game Music Generation

Game developers can use V2M-Zero to automatically generate music for different game scenes, enhancing player immersion.

Long-term Vision

Intelligent Music Creation Tools

V2M-Zero can evolve into an intelligent music creation tool, helping musicians and creators generate music that matches visual content.

Cross-cultural Music Generation

By adapting to different cultural backgrounds, V2M-Zero can generate music that aligns with diverse cultural aesthetics, promoting cultural exchange.

Abstract

Generating music that temporally aligns with video events is challenging for existing text-to-music models, which lack fine-grained temporal control. We introduce V2M-Zero, a zero-pair video-to-music generation approach that outputs time-aligned music for video. Our method is motivated by a key observation: temporal synchronization requires matching when and how much change occurs, not what changes. While musical and visual events differ semantically, they exhibit shared temporal structure that can be captured independently within each modality. We capture this structure through event curves computed from intra-modal similarity using pretrained music and video encoders. By measuring temporal change within each modality independently, these curves provide comparable representations across modalities. This enables a simple training strategy: fine-tune a text-to-music model on music-event curves, then substitute video-event curves at inference without cross-modal training or paired data. Across OES-Pub, MovieGenBench-Music, and AIST++, V2M-Zero achieves substantial gains over paired-data baselines: 5-21% higher audio quality, 13-15% better semantic alignment, 21-52% improved temporal synchronization, and 28% higher beat alignment on dance videos. We find similar results via a large crowd-source subjective listening test. Overall, our results validate that temporal alignment through within-modality features, rather than paired cross-modal supervision, is effective for video-to-music generation. Results are available at https://genjib.github.io/v2m_zero/

cs.CV cs.AI cs.LG cs.MM cs.SD

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