title: accessing audio files from Google Cloud Storage when using Google Speech
body: <p>I have used this bit of code below to successfully parse a .wav file which contains speech, to text, using Google Speech.</p>
  
  <p>But I want to access a different .wav file, which I have placed on Google Cloud Storage (publicly), instead of on my local hard drive.  Why doesn't simply changing  </p>
  
  <p><code>speech_file = 'my/local/system/sample.wav'</code></p>
  
  <p>to<br>
  <code>speech_file = 'https://console.cloud.google.com/storage/browser/speech_proj_files/sample.wav'</code></p>
  
  <p>work acceptably?</p>
  
  <p>Here is my code:</p>
  
  <pre><code>speech_file = 'https://console.cloud.google.com/storage/browser/speech_proj_files/sample.wav'
  
  DISCOVERY_URL = ('https://{api}.googleapis.com/$discovery/rest?'
                   'version={apiVersion}')
  
  
  def get_speech_service():
      credentials = GoogleCredentials.get_application_default().create_scoped(
          ['https://www.googleapis.com/auth/cloud-platform'])
      http = htt|plib2.Http()
      credentials.authorize(http)
  
      return discovery.build(
          'speech', 'v1beta1', http=http, discoveryServiceUrl=DISCOVERY_URL)
  
  def main(speech_file):
      """Transcribe the given audio file.
  
      Args:
          speech_file: the name of the audio file.
      """
      with open(speech_file, 'rb') as speech:
          speech_content = base64.b64encode(speech.read())
  
      service = get_speech_service()
      service_request = service.speech().syncrecognize(
          body={
              'config': {
                  'encoding': 'LINEAR16',  # raw 16-bit signed LE samples
                  'sampleRate': 44100,  # 16 khz
                  'languageCode': 'en-US',  # a BCP-47 language tag
              },
              'audio': {
                  'content': speech_content.decode('UTF-8')
                  }
              })
      response = service_request.execute()
      return response
  </code></pre>