AI Video Editor Talking Head API Documentation
Playground
Try it on WaveSpeedAI!AI Video Editor Talking Head cleans up a talking-to-camera video: it removes filler words, false starts, repeats and dead air, keeps the speaker framed, and burns in accurate word-timed captions. Ready-to-use REST inference API, best performance, no coldstarts, affordable pricing.
Features
Talking Head automatically cleans up a single talking-to-camera recording while preserving the speaker’s intended message. It removes filler words, false starts, repeated takes, and unnecessary pauses, keeps the speaker framed, and adds verified word-timed captions to produce a tighter, more polished version of the original recording.
Use Talking Head when you want to keep the content of a spoken video but make the delivery cleaner and more concise. It is designed for creator videos, presentations, tutorials, interviews, product explanations, courses, and other speaker-focused footage where the goal is to remove mistakes and dead air rather than create a new highlight from selected moments.
Why Choose This?
-
Automatic talking-head cleanup
Remove filler words, restarts, repeated takes, and dead air without manually editing the timeline. -
Natural sentence-level cuts
Speech edits are made around sentence boundaries to help keep transitions natural and avoid abrupt audio cuts. -
Verified captions
Speech is checked by two independent recognition passes. Captions are added only where the transcription can be verified. -
Word-level caption timing
Burned-in captions can highlight words in sync with the speaker. -
Speaker-aware reframing
When changing aspect ratio, the frame follows the speaker’s face while slides and title cards without a visible face remain fully shown. -
Multiple output ratios
Create landscape, vertical, square, portrait, or ultrawide edits for different publishing platforms. -
Long-recording support
Process up to120minutes of source video in a single request.
Parameters
| Parameter | Required | Description |
|---|---|---|
| videos | Yes | Talking-head video to edit, provided as a URL or upload. One video is supported. Up to 2 hours are processed; longer input is truncated. |
| aspect_ratio | No | Output aspect ratio: 16:9, 9:16, 1:1, 4:5, 5:4, 4:3, 3:4, 3:2, 2:3, or 21:9. If omitted, the output follows the source video. |
| language | No | Language of the output captions and voice: auto, en, fr, es, pt, it, ru, zh-CN, zh-TW, ja, ko. auto (default) keeps the source language. A different language translates the captions and replaces the speech with a translated voiceover, without lip sync. |
How to Use
- Upload your recording — Provide the talking-head video you want to clean up.
- Choose aspect ratio optional — Select a vertical, square, landscape, or other supported format, or leave it unset to follow the source.
- Choose language optional — Specify the spoken language or keep
autofor automatic detection. - Submit — Let the editor analyze the speech, remove unwanted sections, reframe the speaker, and generate verified captions.
- Retrieve the result — Download the completed edited and captioned video.
Pricing
Pricing is based on the source video duration.
The rate is $0.005 per 5 seconds, equivalent to $0.06 per minute.
Source duration is rounded up to the next whole second, with a minimum billed duration of 3 seconds and a maximum billed duration of 7200 seconds (120 minutes).
| Source Duration | Billed Duration | Cost |
|---|---|---|
| 3s | 3s | $0.003 |
| 5s | 5s | $0.005 |
| 1 min | 60s | $0.06 |
| 10 min | 600s | $0.60 |
| 60 min | 3600s | $3.60 |
| 120 min | 7200s | $7.20 |
Only the processed source duration affects pricing. aspect_ratio and language do not add separate charges.
Best Use Cases
- Talking-head videos — Clean up direct-to-camera recordings automatically.
- Creator content — Tighten YouTube, short-form, educational, or commentary videos.
- Interviews — Remove pauses, restarts, and repeated takes from speaker-focused footage.
- Tutorials and explainers — Improve pacing while preserving the speaker’s intended content.
- Presentations — Turn long spoken recordings into cleaner, more polished videos.
- Vertical social content — Reframe landscape recordings for
9:16,4:5, or square feeds. - Captioned speech content — Generate burned-in captions with verified word timing.
Pro Tips
- Use clean recordings with clearly audible speech for stronger transcription and edit decisions.
- Set
languageexplicitly when you know the spoken language and want more predictable speech recognition. - Use
9:16for vertical short-form content and1:1or4:5for square or portrait social formats. - Leave
aspect_ratiounset when you want to preserve the original framing. - Keep the speaker clearly visible when face-following reframing is important.
- Review any returned
warningswhen parts of the speech could not be verified.
Notes
- Translated voiceover takes considerably longer than a same-language edit.
videosis required and accepts one source video.- Maximum input size is
2 GB. - Typical processing time is approximately
0.7×the source duration, such as about7minutes for a10-minute recording. - Filler words, false starts, repeated takes, and long pauses may be removed around sentence boundaries.
- If the source already contains burned-in subtitles, generated captions are positioned above them.
- Output aspect ratio follows the source when
aspect_ratiois not specified.
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'
{
"videos": [
"https://interactive-examples.mdn.mozilla.net/media/cc0-videos/flower.mp4"
],
"aspect_ratio": "16:9",
"language": "auto"
}
JSON
)
# 1. Submit the prediction.
SUBMIT_RESPONSE=$(curl --silent --show-error --fail-with-body \
-X POST "https://api.wavespeed.ai/api/v3/wavespeed-ai/ai-video-editor/talking-head" \
-H "Authorization: Bearer ${WAVESPEED_API_KEY}" \
-H "Content-Type: application/json" \
-d "${REQUEST_BODY}")
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 "${PREDICTION_ID}" ]; then
printf 'Submission response did not contain a prediction id
' >&2
exit 1
fi
RESULT_URL="https://api.wavespeed.ai/api/v3/predictions/${PREDICTION_ID}/result"
# 2. Poll until the prediction finishes.
while true; do
RESPONSE=$(curl --silent --show-error --fail-with-body \
"${RESULT_URL}" \
-H "Authorization: Bearer ${WAVESPEED_API_KEY}")
RESULT=$(printf '%s' "${RESPONSE}" | jq 'if type == "object" and has("data") then .data else . end')
STATUS=$(printf '%s' "${RESULT}" | jq -r '.status // empty')
case "${STATUS}" in
completed) printf '%s\n' "${RESULT}" | jq '.outputs'; break ;;
failed|cancelled|timeout|deleted) printf '%s\n' "${RESULT}" | jq . >&2; exit 1 ;;
*) sleep 2 ;;
esac
doneParameters
Task Submission Parameters
Request Parameters
| Parameter | Type | Required | Default | Range | Description |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| videos | array<string> | Yes | - | 1 ~ 1 items | The talking-head video to edit. Up to 2 hours is processed. |
| aspect_ratio | string | No | - | 16:9, 9:16, 1:1, 4:5, 5:4, 4:3, 3:4, 3:2, 2:3, 21:9 | Aspect ratio of the output video. Auto-detected from the source video if not specified. Other ratios follow the speaker's face. |
| language | string | No | auto | auto, en, fr, es, pt, it, ru, zh-CN, zh-TW, ja, ko | Language of the output captions and voice. "auto" keeps the language spoken in the source. Choosing a different language translates the captions and replaces the speech with a translated voiceover (no lip sync). |
Response Parameters
| Parameter | Type | Description |
|---|---|---|
| code | integer | HTTP status code (e.g., 200 for success) |
| message | string | Status message (e.g., “success”) |
| data.id | string | Unique identifier for the prediction, Task Id |
| data.model | string | Model ID used for the prediction |
| data.outputs | array | Output values, usually URL strings; some models return text strings or structured result objects (empty when status is not completed) |
| data.urls | object | Object containing related API endpoints |
| data.status | string | Task status. completed is successful; failed, cancelled, timeout, and deleted are failure terminal statuses. |
| data.created_at | string | ISO timestamp of when the request was created (e.g., “2023-04-01T12:34:56.789Z”) |
| data.error | string | Error message (empty if no error occurred) |
| data.timings | object | Object containing timing details |
| data.timings.inference | integer | Inference time in milliseconds |
Result Request Parameters
| Parameter | Type | Required | Default | Description |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| id | string | Yes | - | Task ID |
Result Response Parameters
| Parameter | Type | Description |
|---|---|---|
| code | integer | HTTP status code (e.g., 200 for success) |
| message | string | Status message (e.g., “success”) |
| data | object | The prediction data object containing all details |
| data.id | string | Unique identifier for the prediction |
| data.model | string | Model ID used for the prediction |
| data.outputs | array<string | object> | Array of generated outputs (empty when status is not completed). Items are usually URL strings, but may be text strings or structured result objects, depending on the model. |
| data.urls | object | Object containing related API endpoints |
| data.status | string | Status: completed is successful; failed, cancelled, timeout, and deleted are failure terminal statuses |
| data.created_at | string | ISO timestamp of when the request was created |
| data.error | string | Error message (empty if no error occurred) |
| data.timings | object | Object containing timing details |
| data.timings.inference | integer | Inference time in milliseconds |