Bytedance Seedance 2.5 Reference To Video API Documentation

Bytedance Seedance 2.5 Reference To Video API Documentation

Playground

Seedance 2.5 Reference to Video creates cinematic videos with native audio from your own reference images, videos, and audio, keeping characters, products, motion, and sound consistent while a prompt directs the new shot. Ready-to-use REST inference API, best performance, no coldstarts, affordable pricing.

Features

Seedance 2.5 Reference-to-Video guides generation with your own reference images, videos, and audio. Keep characters, products, scenes, motion, and soundtrack consistent while a prompt directs the new shot, with native synchronized audio and director-style control over camera, lighting, and pacing. The same reference inputs are also accepted by Seedance 2.5 Text-to-Video.

Why Choose This?

• Reference-guided generation
  Use reference images, videos, and audio to steer characters, products, composition, motion, and soundtrack.

• Consistent subjects
  Keep the same character, product, or scene across shots by attaching it as a reference.

• Native audio generation
  Generate synchronized audio together with the video in a single workflow.

• Director-style prompt control
  Control camera movement, lighting, performance, atmosphere, and visual style through prompts.

• Flexible output settings
  Choose aspect ratio, duration, resolution, and audio generation settings for different creative workflows.

Parameters

How to Use

1. Write your prompt — Describe the scene with cinematic detail, including subject, action, lighting, mood, camera movement, and style.
2. Choose aspect ratio — Use 16:9 for widescreen, 9:16 for vertical content, or another supported layout.
3. Set duration — Choose a video length from 4 to 30 seconds.
4. Choose resolution — Select 480p, 720p, 1080p, or 4k.
5. Add references optional — Use reference images for style or character guidance, reference videos for motion guidance, and reference audio for soundtrack direction.
6. Configure audio optional — Keep generate_audio enabled when synchronized audio is needed.
7. Submit — Generate the final video and retrieve the output URL.

Pricing

Pricing is calculated upfront using your selected duration, plus reference-video charges when applicable.

Without reference videos

Output-only pricing:

Prices scale linearly with requested generation duration from 4 to 30 seconds.

With reference videos

Normalized reference-video duration and requested generation duration use the same per-second rate:

Each reference video is normalized to at least 2 seconds, each clip and the combined input are capped at 30 seconds, and the normalized combined input duration is rounded up to a whole second for billing.

Example: 5 seconds of normalized reference input plus 5 seconds of output costs $1.10 at 480p, $2.20 at 720p, $5.50 at 1080p, or $11.00 at 4k.

Best Use Cases

• Cinematic video generation — Create polished video scenes from detailed text prompts.
• Commercials and ads — Generate high-quality promotional clips, product scenes, and campaign visuals.
• Social media content — Produce vertical, square, landscape, or ultra-wide short-form videos.
• Concept visualization — Turn creative ideas into motion previews for pitching, planning, and storyboarding.
• Reference-guided generation — Use images, videos, or audio to guide style, motion, characters, or soundtrack direction.
• Music and audio-driven scenes — Generate clips with synchronized sound for music, ambience, or narrative moments.

Pro Tips

• Write prompts like a film director, including subject, action, camera angle, lighting, atmosphere, and mood.
• Use 16:9 for cinematic widescreen and 9:16 for vertical social content.
• Include specific visual details such as lighting direction, color palette, environment, and camera movement.
• Use reference images when character, product, or style consistency matters.
• Use reference videos when motion, pacing, camera movement, or scene structure matters.
• Use reference audio when soundtrack, ambience, or voice style matters.
• Start with shorter durations for prompt testing, then increase duration once the direction is confirmed.
• Use asset tags such as @Image 1, @Image 2, and @Audio 1 to reference uploaded assets in the prompt.
• Reference video duration is rounded up, with a minimum of 2 seconds and a maximum of 30 seconds.

Related Models

• Seedance 2.5 Image-to-Video — Generate video from a start image and prompt.
• Seedance 2.5 Video Edit — Edit an existing video with a prompt.
• Seedance 2.5 Video Extend — Extend an existing video with a new generated segment.
• Seedance 2.0 Reference-to-Video — Previous-generation Seedance text-to-video model.

Authentication

For authentication details, please refer to the Authentication Guide.

API Endpoints

Submit Task & Query Result

set -euo pipefail

export WAVESPEED_API_KEY="your-api-key"

REQUEST_BODY=$(cat <<'JSON'
{
  "prompt": "A cinematic ocean wave at sunrise, highly detailed",
  "aspect_ratio": "16:9",
  "resolution": "720p",
  "duration": 5,
  "generate_audio": true
}
JSON
)

# 1. Submit the prediction once. Never retry this request automatically:
# a retry after an unclear failure can create a second, billed task.
CHECK='The task may already exist. Check History or the predictions list before submitting again.'
if ! SUBMIT_RESPONSE=$(curl --silent --show-error --fail-with-body \
  --connect-timeout 10 --max-time 60 \
  -X POST "https://api.wavespeed.ai/api/v3/bytedance/seedance-2.5/reference-to-video" \
  -H "Authorization: Bearer ${WAVESPEED_API_KEY}" \
  -H "Content-Type: application/json" \
  -d "${REQUEST_BODY}"); then
  printf 'Submit failed. %s\n' "${CHECK}" >&2
  exit 1
fi

TASK=$(printf '%s' "${SUBMIT_RESPONSE}" | jq 'if type == "object" and has("data") then .data else . end')
PREDICTION_ID=$(printf '%s' "${TASK}" | jq -r '.id // empty')
if [ -z "${PREDICTION_ID}" ]; then
  printf 'Submission response did not contain a prediction id. %s\n' "${CHECK}" >&2
  exit 1
fi
RESULT_URL="https://api.wavespeed.ai/api/v3/predictions/${PREDICTION_ID}/result"

# 2. Poll until the prediction reaches a final status.
BODY_FILE=$(mktemp)
trap 'rm -f "${BODY_FILE}"' EXIT
while true; do
  # Transient errors (429, 5xx) are retried, honoring Retry-After.
  HTTP_CODE=$(curl --silent --show-error --fail-with-body \
    --connect-timeout 10 --max-time 60 --retry 5 --retry-delay 2 \
    --output "${BODY_FILE}" --write-out '%{http_code}' \
    "${RESULT_URL}" \
    -H "Authorization: Bearer ${WAVESPEED_API_KEY}" || true)
  case "${HTTP_CODE}" in
    2??) ;;
    000|429|5??)  # dropped connection or temporary error: keep polling
      printf 'Task %s: HTTP %s, polling again in 10s\n' "${PREDICTION_ID}" "${HTTP_CODE}" >&2
      sleep 10; continue ;;
    *) printf 'Task %s: HTTP %s\n' "${PREDICTION_ID}" "${HTTP_CODE}" >&2
      cat "${BODY_FILE}" >&2; exit 1 ;;
  esac
  RESULT=$(jq 'if type == "object" and has("data") then .data else . end' "${BODY_FILE}")
  STATUS=$(printf '%s' "${RESULT}" | jq -r '.status // empty')

  case "${STATUS}" in
    completed) printf '%s\n' "${RESULT}" | jq '.outputs'; break ;;
    failed|cancelled|timeout|deleted)
      printf 'Task %s ended with status %s\n' "${PREDICTION_ID}" "${STATUS}" >&2
      printf '%s\n' "${RESULT}" | jq . >&2; exit 1 ;;
    *) sleep 2 ;;
  esac
done

Parameters

Task Submission Parameters

Request Parameters

Every model also accepts the global request options enable_sync_mode and enable_base64_output; see their pages for details.

Response Parameters

Result Request Parameters

Result Response Parameters