# Reel

An MCP server that turns a video into text, on this Mac.

Point it at any video ffmpeg can read. It extracts the sound, splits it on
silence when the video is long, has [utt](https://github.com/doublej/utt)
transcribe each piece on-device, and hands the stitched transcript back to
whichever assistant asked. Reel also appears as a settings page inside utt,
listing the videos it has transcribed.

## Requirements

- [Bun](https://bun.sh/)
- ffmpeg and ffprobe (`brew install ffmpeg`)
- utt, running

## Install

```bash
bun install
just install-page   # draw the settings page inside utt
just register       # make the tools available to every Claude Code session
```

## Tools

| Tool | What it does |
|------|--------------|
| `transcribe_video` | `path`, optional `hints`, `timestamps`, `wait_seconds`. Returns the transcript, or a `job_id` when it takes longer than you waited. |
| `transcribe_status` | `job_id`, optional `wait_seconds`. Picks up a transcript that was still being worked on. |

`hints` are words a recogniser tends to get wrong — names, products, repos.
Near misses are corrected to them.

## Settings, inside utt

- **Let assistants turn video into text** — the switch that turns every request away.
- **Keep a list of the videos** — what the page shows.
- **Save the words beside the video** — leaves a `.txt` next to each file.

## Common commands

| Command | Description |
|---------|-------------|
| `just check` | Format, lint, typecheck, tests |
| `just install-page` | Write the plugin manifest into utt |
| `just register` | Add the MCP server to every Claude Code session |