Video Transcript MCP Server

A Model Context Protocol server for video/audio transcription with multi-platform support.

Features

• Three-tier transcription strategy: Subtitle extraction first (zero cost) → Whisper local transcription (offline free) → Mini-program guidance for closed platforms
• 1000+ platform support via yt-dlp: YouTube, Bilibili, Douyin, Kuaishou, TikTok, and more
• Long video handling: Auto-split by 30-minute segments (configurable) with checkpoint resume
• Chinese ASR optimization: Bilibili AI subtitles, HuggingFace mirror, SenseVoice/Paraformer ready
• Sync & Async modes: Direct results for short videos, task polling for long videos
• Structured output: Pydantic-validated results with timestamps, segments, and metadata

Quick Start

Install

pip install video-transcript-mcp

# With Whisper support
pip install 'video-transcript-mcp[whisper]'

# With dev tools (MCP Inspector, testing)
pip install 'video-transcript-mcp[dev]'

Run

# Direct run
video-transcript-mcp

# Or with uvx (no install needed)
uvx video-transcript-mcp

# Debug with MCP Inspector
mcp dev video_transcript_mcp.server:mcp

Prerequisites

The server relies on external tools for audio processing:

# Install yt-dlp (video download + subtitle extraction)
pip install yt-dlp

# Install FFmpeg (audio splitting + format conversion)
brew install ffmpeg        # macOS
sudo apt install ffmpeg    # Ubuntu/Debian

# Install faster-whisper (local transcription)
pip install faster-whisper

MCP Client Configuration

Claude Desktop

Add to ~/Library/Application Support/Claude/claude_desktop_config.json:

{
  "mcpServers": {
    "video-transcript": {
      "command": "uvx",
      "args": ["video-transcript-mcp"]
    }
  }
}

Cursor

Add to .cursor/mcp.json:

{
  "mcpServers": {
    "video-transcript": {
      "command": "uvx",
      "args": ["video-transcript-mcp"]
    }
  }
}

Trae

Add to Trae MCP settings:

{
  "mcpServers": {
    "video-transcript": {
      "command": "python3",
      "args": ["-m", "video_transcript_mcp.server"]
    }
  }
}

Claude Code

claude mcp add video-transcript -- uvx video-transcript-mcp

Tools

transcribe_url

Transcribe a video from URL using the three-tier strategy.

# Short video (sync mode - direct result)
transcribe_url(url="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xxxxx")

# Long video (async mode - returns task_id)
transcribe_url(
    url="https://www.bilibili.com/video/BVxxxxx",
    async_mode=True
)
# Then poll:
get_transcript_status(task_id="abc12345")

Parameters:

Parameter	Type	Default	Description
url	str	required	Video URL
model	str	large-v3-turbo	Whisper model
language	str	zh	Language code
cookies_browser	str?	null	Browser for cookies
skip_subtitles	bool	false	Skip to Whisper directly
segment_minutes	int	30	Segment length for long video splitting. Increase for 1h+ videos
async_mode	bool	false	Return task_id for polling

transcribe_file

Transcribe a local audio/video file.

# Short file (sync mode)
transcribe_file(file_path="/path/to/audio.mp3")

# Long file (1h+) with larger segments
transcribe_file(
    file_path="/path/to/lecture.mp4",
    segment_minutes=60,
    async_mode=True
)

get_transcript_status

Poll the status of an async transcription task.

get_transcript_status(task_id="abc12345")
# Returns: {status: "completed", progress: 1.0, result: {...}}

list_transcripts

List all completed transcripts.

list_transcripts()
# Returns: [{task_id, title, platform, method, duration, ...}]

Three-Tier Transcription Strategy

URL Input
    │
    ├─ Tier 1: Subtitle Extraction (zero cost, fastest)
    │   ├─ YouTube: zh-Hans, zh-CN, zh, en
    │   ├─ Bilibili: ai-zh (AI subtitles)
    │   └─ Others: zh-CN, zh, en
    │
    ├─ Tier 2: Whisper Transcription (offline, free)
    │   ├─ Download audio via yt-dlp
    │   ├─ Split by 30-min segments (configurable, long video)
    │   ├─ Transcribe each segment with faster-whisper
    │   ├─ Global timestamp concatenation
    │   └─ Checkpoint resume support
    │
    └─ Tier 3: Mini-Program Guidance (closed platforms)
        ├─ Xiaohongshu (小红书)
        └─ WeChat Video (视频号)

Environment Variables

Variable	Default	Description
HF_ENDPOINT	(unset)	Set to https://hf-mirror.com for China network optimization
HF_HUB_DISABLE_XET	1	Disable Xet storage (avoids download errors)
TRANSCRIPT_OUTPUT_DIR	~/.video-transcript-mcp/output	Output directory

Supported Platforms

Platform	Subtitle Extraction	Whisper Fallback	Notes
YouTube	✅	✅	Auto-subs + manual subs
Bilibili	✅	✅	AI subtitle (ai-zh), requires cookies for subtitle access
Douyin	✅	✅
Kuaishou	✅	✅
TikTok	✅	✅
Weibo	✅	✅
Xiaohongshu	❌	❌	Mini-program guidance
WeChat Video	❌	❌	Mini-program guidance
Local files	N/A	✅	mp3, mp4, wav, m4a, flac
Podcast URLs	✅	✅	Direct audio download

Community

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License

MIT