Send audio and video streams

This document describes how to send audio and video streams to the Live API for real-time, bidirectional communication with Gemini models. Learn how to configure and transmit audio and video data to build dynamic and interactive applications.

Send audio streams

Implementing real-time audio requires strict adherence to sample rate specifications and careful buffer management to ensure low latency and natural interruptibility.

The Live API supports the following audio formats:

  • Input audio: Raw 16-bit PCM audio at 16 kHz, little-endian
  • Output audio: Raw 16-bit PCM audio at 24 kHz, little-endian

The following code sample shows you how to send streaming audio data:

import asyncio
# Assumes session is an active Live API session
# and chunk_data contains bytes of raw 16-bit PCM audio at 16 kHz.
from google.genai import types
# Send audio input data in chunks
await session.send_realtime_input(
    audio=types.Blob(data=chunk_data, mime_type="audio/pcm;rate=16000")
)

The client must maintain a playback buffer. The server streams audio in chunks within server_content messages. The client's responsibility is to decode, buffer, and play the data.

The following code sample shows you how to process streaming audio data:

import asyncio
# Assumes session is an active Live API session
# and audio_queue is an asyncio.Queue for buffering audio for playback.
import numpy as np

async for msg in session.receive():
    server_content = msg.server_content
    if server_content:
        # 1. Handle Interruption
        if server_content.interrupted:
            print("\n[Interrupted] Flushing buffer...")
            # Clear the Python queue
            while not audio_queue.empty():
                try: audio_queue.get_nowait()
                except asyncio.QueueEmpty: break
            # Send signal to worker to reset hardware buffers if needed
            await audio_queue.put(None)
            continue

        # 2. Process Audio chunks
        if server_content.model_turn:
            for part in server_content.model_turn.parts:
                if part.inline_data:
                    # Add PCM data to playback queue
                    await audio_queue.put(np.frombuffer(part.inline_data.data, dtype='int16'))

Send video streams

Video streaming provides visual context. The Live API expects a sequence of discrete image frames and supports video frames input at 1 FPS. For best results, use native 768x768 resolution at 1 FPS.

The following code sample shows you how to send streaming video data:

import asyncio
# Assumes session is an active Live API session
# and chunk_data contains bytes of a JPEG image.
from google.genai import types
# Send video input data in chunks
await session.send_realtime_input(
    media=types.Blob(data=chunk_data, mime_type="image/jpeg")
)

The client implementation captures a frame from the video feed, encodes it as a JPEG blob, and transmits it using the realtime_input message structure.

import cv2
import asyncio
from google.genai import types

async def send_video_stream(session):
    # Open webcam
    cap = cv2.VideoCapture(0)

    while True:
        ret, frame = cap.read()
        if not ret: break

        # 1. Resize to optimal resolution (768x768 max)
        frame = cv2.resize(frame, (768, 768))

        # 2. Encode as JPEG
        _, buffer = cv2.imencode('.jpg', frame,)

        # 3. Send as realtime input
        await session.send_realtime_input(
            media=types.Blob(data=buffer.tobytes(), mime_type="image/jpeg")
        )

        # 4. Wait 1 second (1 FPS)
        await asyncio.sleep(1.0)

    cap.release()

Configure media resolution

You can specify the resolution for input media by setting the media_resolution field in the session configuration. Lower resolution reduces token usage and latency, while higher resolution improves detail recognition. Supported values include low, medium, and high.

config = {
    "response_modalities": ["audio"],
    "media_resolution": "low",
}

What's next