# claude-real-video (crv)

> Lets an agent actually watch footage locally — scene-cut keyframes plus transcript, no upload.

- **Category:** Editing & Post
- **Vendor:** Community (HUANGCHIHHUNGLeo) (community)
- **Pricing:** freemium
- **Verified:** 2026-10-22

## What it does

crv turns a local file or a URL into something an LLM can read: it detects scene changes with ffmpeg rather than sampling on a fixed interval, deduplicates near-identical frames by pixel difference, transcribes the audio with Whisper, and hands back frames plus a manifest. The MCP mode adds a memory layer — every watched video is indexed, so an agent can ask questions across the whole library instead of one clip at a time. For a filmmaker-agent this is the dailies-review bench that TwelveLabs and Valossa do in the cloud, done on your own machine with nothing leaving it.

## Connect

- Claude Code: `claude mcp add crv -- crv-mcp`
- Local: `crv-mcp (after `pip install 'claude-real-video[mcp]'`)`

**Auth:** none

## Capabilities

[video-understanding](https://mcp.film/capabilities/video-understanding.md) · [scene-detection](https://mcp.film/capabilities/scene-detection.md) · `keyframe-extraction` · [transcription](https://mcp.film/capabilities/transcription.md) · `footage-search` · [local-post](https://mcp.film/capabilities/local-post.md)

## Sample tools

`watch_video` · `get_frames` · `get_transcript` · `search_memory` · `list_watched`

## Field notes

MIT, 2,250 stars and 202 forks off a repo created 2026-06-30, last pushed 2026-10-08; PyPI is at v0.10.7 (2026-09-26), and the server was registered as io.github.HUANGCHIHHUNGLeo/claude-real-video. The main trap: MCP is an extra, not the default. Plain `pip install claude-real-video` gives you the `crv` CLI with no server, and the `claude mcp add` line above only works after installing the `[mcp]` extra. The old branch confusion is fixed — `master` is now the default branch and its README documents the MCP mode, the five tools and `crv-mcp` directly; a stale `main` branch still exists, so ignore it if a link lands you there. The README says MCP mode is verified end-to-end on Claude Code only; Claude Desktop and Cursor speak the same stdio protocol but are untested. FFmpeg must be on PATH and is not pip-installable; Python >=3.10; transcription needs the `[whisper]` or `[fast]` extra, which is a large download (`[mlx]` and `[speakers]` extras also exist). Analyses cache under ~/.cache/crv-mcp, so repeat questions are cheap but the directory grows without bound. Frames come back as images, so a long video is expensive in tokens — reach for get_transcript when you only need the words. Free and local, but the upsell has grown: 'crv Pro' is now a one-time $29 (was $19) adding camera, sound and emotion analysis, sold via Capafy and Lemon Squeezy, plus a separate $9.90 'Real Video for Codex' add-on. Downloading from a URL is your legal problem, not the tool's.

## Alternatives

- [Valossa Video Assistant MCP](https://mcp.film/mcps/valossa.md) — Hosted video-understanding MCP: transcripts, shots, visual scenes, soundbites, and clips.
- [Open Edit](https://mcp.film/mcps/open-edit.md) — A local editor with no GUI and no LLM: an append-only edit graph an agent drives over MCP.
- [OrkasVideoStudio](https://mcp.film/mcps/orkas-videostudio.md) — Local MCP and CLI toolkit for agent-driven video composition, editing, analysis, and rendering.
- [reap MCP](https://mcp.film/mcps/reap.md) — Hosted MCP that clips, captions, dubs, reframes, and publishes long-form footage.
- [LeClap](https://mcp.film/mcps/leclap.md) — Deterministic video from one JSON template — same input, same frames, rendered locally.
- [Kinocut](https://mcp.film/mcps/mcp-video.md) — Guardrailed local video editing MCP — FFmpeg, receipts, quality gates, and repurposing.

## Verification

- Status: Freshly checked (2 days old)
- Added: 2026-09-08
- Last verified: 2026-10-22
- Machine JSON: https://mcp.film/api/mcps/claude-real-video.json

## Links

- Docs: https://pypi.org/project/claude-real-video/?utm_source=mcp.film&utm_medium=referral&utm_campaign=directory&utm_content=claude-real-video%3Adocs
- Repo: https://github.com/HUANGCHIHHUNGLeo/claude-real-video

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Structured data: https://mcp.film/api/mcps/claude-real-video.json · Directory: https://mcp.film
Canonical: https://mcp.film/mcps/claude-real-video/
Hosted directory MCP: https://mcp.film/mcp