Veo 3.1 Lite 1080p is 8 seconds only: options for a 5-second clip

You cannot ask Veo 3.1 Lite for a 5-second clip at 1080p. Google's Veo page lists 4, 6 and 8 seconds for Lite and says the duration must be 8 seconds at 1080p, so a 1080p render is always 8 seconds long. There are two ways around it: render the 8 seconds and cut it to 5 with Sume's video trim, or use a model whose 1080p range already includes 5 seconds.

The second route is also the one that lasts. Google's deprecations page lists veo-3.1-lite-generate-preview with a shutdown date of October 22, 2026 and gemini-omni-1.1-flash as the recommended replacement.

What exactly does Google say about Lite durations?

The Veo page and the pricing page give a short list of Lite constraints. 4k is not available on Lite at all, and the model is still labelled Preview.

Route 1: render 8 seconds, then trim to 5

At $0.08 a second, an 8-second 1080p Lite clip costs $0.64 on Google's price list. Sume's video trim cuts a [start, end) range out of one Sume-hosted clip into a new MP4 for $0.02 per job, re-encoding frame-accurately by default and keeping the audio unless you pass audio: drop. Sume's catalog does not list Veo, so the Veo file has to be imported into your workspace first: the trim doc says there is no open-internet fetch and points to POST /v1/media-imports.

Pick the 5 seconds you want from the 8 and set start. The example below keeps seconds 1 to 6.

curl -X POST https://api.sume.com/v1/video-trim \
  -H "Authorization: Bearer $SUME_API_KEY" \
  -H "Content-Type: application/json" \
  -H "Idempotency-Key: veo-lite-trim-001" \
  -d '{
    "video_url": "https://media.sume.com/artifacts/artf_demo/veo-lite-8s.mp4",
    "start": 1,
    "duration": 5
  }'

Route 2: a model whose 1080p range includes 5 seconds

Sume's Video Router catalog gives per-model limits. gemini-omni-flash-1.1 takes 3 to 10 seconds at 360p, 720p, 1080p or 4K in 16:9 or 9:16, with native synced audio. Google's release notes say 1080p and 4K Omni outputs are generated using upscaling, so treat 1080p there as an upscaled delivery size.

Sume bills the provider list price times 1.25 on every row. The list rates in the table are from the Video Router API doc.

Which route should I use?

If the clip must come from Veo's look, trimming is the only option, and you pay for 3 unused seconds. If any good model will do, ask for exactly 5 seconds and skip the cut: a 5-second 1080p Omni clip is $0.75 at the $0.15 list rate before Sume's 1.25 multiplier.

Either way, read capabilities from GET /v1/video-router/models before you hard-code a duration, because limits differ per model.

How do I check the result before publishing?

After a trim or a short generation, confirm the length and audio track instead of trusting the request. Sume's video inspect returns probe facts such as probe.has_audio, and its stills let you look at the first and last frames of a 5-second cut to be sure the trim did not clip the action.

Keep the 8-second master as well. A trim never touches its source, so if the 5-second version turns out too tight you can cut a different range from the same file for $0.02 instead of paying for another render. That matters more on Veo than on cheaper models: a 1080p Lite clip is $0.64 every time you regenerate it, while a second trim is two cents.

One more scheduling point. Because the Lite preview id is scheduled to stop on October 22, 2026, a pipeline that depends on its 8-second rule will need a new duration plan anyway. Writing the duration into one config value, and choosing it per model from the catalog, makes that migration a one-line change instead of a rewrite.