claude-real-video, let Claude actually watch a video

When to use

The user gives you a video (URL or file path) and asks what's in it, to summarize it, to analyze its structure, or to answer questions about it.

Requirements

• pip install "claude-real-video[whisper]" (installs the crv CLI; needs Python 3.10+ and ffmpeg)
• The [whisper] extra is required for speech-to-text, pip never installs extras on its own. The first transcription then downloads a whisper base model (~139 MB).

Steps

1. Run the extractor (add --grid to cut image count ~9x, recommended):

   crv "<url-or-path>" -o crv-out --grid --why "<what the user wants to know>"
   

   For long videos cap the frames: --max-frames 60.

   If only part of the video matters (the user says "the demo about 28 minutes in", "just the last 5 minutes"), add --from 28:00 --to 43:00. It is much faster, and the timestamps crv reports stay source timecodes, so you can quote them as-is.

   If the meaning is small on-screen text (a terminal, a spreadsheet, a dense dashboard), add --frame-width 1600. The default 640 finds the right moment and then loses the detail. It costs more output, so use it only when the text itself is the point.

   Use one output folder per video (e.g. -o crv-out/<slug>). A folder that already holds an analysis is refused; pass --overwrite to replace it.

2. Read crv-out/MANIFEST.txt first, it summarizes the run (frame counts, frames dir) and includes the transcript. Read the transcript from start to finish before writing any analysis, sampling lines is only for locating timestamps; the strongest details are often in the tail. Frames are named in chronological order; transcript timings live in transcript.json when available.

3. Read the contact sheets in crv-out/grids/ (each is a 3×3 sequence of consecutive keyframes, in chronological order). Only read individual crv-out/frames/*.jpg when you need a close-up of one moment.