video-vision-mcp

An MCP server that gives Claude Code the ability to analyze any video — a local file, a URL, or a Jira ticket attachment — through one set of tools.

Claude can't watch video natively (only text + the first frame of an image). This server converts a video into sampled frame images + an audio transcript, or — when a Gemini key is present — a native Gemini analysis of the whole video. It works alongside mcp-atlassian and shares its .env.

Scenario: open a Jira ticket with a video bug report → one command (analyze_video jira_issue_key=DEV-123) → you see the frames and the transcript (or Gemini's analysis if a key is configured), without juggling two MCP servers.

Three backend tiers (auto-selected)

Precedence: Gemini > OpenAI > Groq > local. Set VIDEO_MCP_DISABLE_GEMINI=true to force tiers 1/2 even with a Gemini key. The backend used is named in every result.

Privacy: tier 1 never uploads anything. Tiers 2/3 print a one-time notice in the session the first time video content is sent to a third party.

Related MCP server: Video MCP

Tools

• analyze_video — frames + transcript + metadata (the main tool).

• get_video_transcript_only — transcript text only.

• extract_frames_at — frames at specific timestamps ("00:42", "1:05", 12.5).

• list_recent_analyses — cached analyses + backend used.

• compare_backends — same video via tier 1 and tier 3 side by side.

Install

Requires Python ≥ 3.10. A single install pulls everything — backends, plus the ffmpeg and whisper.cpp dependencies. Nothing is ever installed globally on your machine (no brew/apt/winget, no sudo).

Use it (recommended)

With uv you don't install it explicitly — uvx runs the published package on demand (see Register in Claude Code). To install into an environment instead:

uv pip install video-vision-mcp     # or: pip install video-vision-mcp

From source (development)

git clone https://github.com/KitDevUA/video-vision-mcp.git
cd video-vision-mcp
uv venv && source .venv/bin/activate
uv pip install -e ".[dev]"          # all backends bundled

Dependencies — fully self-contained

• ffmpeg / ffprobe: if they are already on your PATH, those system binaries are used. Otherwise the bundled static-ffmpeg package supplies them (fetched once into its own local cache — never a system-wide install).

• whisper.cpp (tier 1 transcription): shipped as the bundled pywhispercpp binding (prebuilt wheels; builds from source only if no wheel exists for your platform/Python). A whisper-cli already on PATH is used if present.

• whisper model: the ggml model (base by default) downloads from Hugging Face into the cache on first transcription. Override with VIDEO_MCP_WHISPER_MODEL (tiny/base/small/medium/large-v3) or VIDEO_MCP_WHISPER_MODEL_PATH.

• cloud-only: set OPENAI_API_KEY / GROQ_API_KEY (tier 2) or GEMINI_API_KEY (tier 3); whisper.cpp is then never invoked.

Configure

cp env.example .env
# edit .env — nothing is required for tier 1

See env.example for every variable. The .env format matches mcp-atlassian, so Jira creds (JIRA_URL / JIRA_USERNAME / JIRA_API_TOKEN) can be shared.

Register in Claude Code

Add to your project .mcp.json (or global config), next to mcp-atlassian — see .mcp.json.example:

{
  "mcpServers": {
    "video-vision": {
      "command": "uvx",
      "args": ["video-vision-mcp"],
      "env": { "VIDEO_MCP_ENV": "/abs/path/to/.env" }
    }
  }
}

uvx downloads and runs the published package automatically — no manual install step. VIDEO_MCP_ENV is optional (tier 1 needs no keys); point it at your .env if you use Jira or cloud backends. For local development against a checkout, use "args": ["--from", "/abs/path/to/video-vision-mcp", "video-vision-mcp"] instead. Restart Claude Code; the video-vision tools then appear.

Cache

Results are cached at ~/.cache/video-vision-mcp/ keyed by (file hash, backend) — re-analyzing the same video is instant, and switching backends keeps each result separately. Downloaded URLs/Jira files and whisper models live under the same dir. Override with VIDEO_MCP_CACHE_DIR.

How it fits with mcp-atlassian

mcp-atlassian can download a Jira attachment but can't analyze it. This server takes over from there: pass jira_issue_key and it fetches the attachment over Jira REST itself (same creds), so you stay in one tool call. If the Jira token is missing/invalid you get a clear error pointing at .env, not a silent failure.