Google Veo 2 Review — DeepMind's 4K Video Model That Beat Sora One Week After Its Launch

Google Veo 2 launched December 16, 2024 — one week after OpenAI's Sora. It claimed 4K resolution and multi-minute video generation, and in Google's own MovieGen Bench study, human raters preferred it 59% vs 27% over Sora Turbo. This is a detailed technical review of what Veo 2 actually delivered: architecture, capabilities, pricing, camera controls, SynthID watermarking, access tiers, and the broader context of the Sora vs. Veo 2 moment that defined the December 2024 AI video landscape.