Claude
How to let Claude watch a video
Claude cannot open a video file on its own. Add Playhead as a custom connector and it gets the tools to do it. From then on you paste a link into the chat and ask what happens at second 37.
Free plan: 50,000 credits a month, no card needed.
What this changes
This is the only way to do it on a phone. Every other approach in this space is a script that needs a video toolchain on the machine you are sitting at, which rules out the web and iOS entirely. Playhead runs nowhere near your device. You sign in with your Playhead account, and the same connection follows you from the laptop to the phone.
Setting it up
- 01
Open the connector dialog
In Claude, go to Settings → Connectors → Add custom connector. The button on this page opens it with the URL already filled in.
- 02
Paste the server URL
https://mcp.tryplayhead.com/mcp and no API key. You sign in with your Playhead account instead, which is why this link is safe to share.
- 03
Approve the connection
You will see exactly which scopes are being granted: analysing videos, reading your plan, and staying connected. Approving is one click and it lands you back in the chat.
- 04
Paste a link and ask
Any TikTok, YouTube, Instagram, X, Vimeo or Reddit URL. Claude calls watch_video, gets back what happens in that video, and answers from what is on screen rather than from the description.
Things worth asking it
Every one of these comes back with the second attached, so you can open the video at that moment and check it yourself.
- https://www.tiktok.com/@user/video/… what is the hook here, and exactly when does it end?
- Watch this ad and tell me every cut, with timestamps.
- Read the text on screen between 0:12 and 0:18.
- Is there a moment in this video where nothing is happening for more than two seconds?
Ask once wide, then as narrow as you like
The first question is the one that watches the video, and it costs the most. Every question after it reads what that look already found, so it comes back quickly and costs a fraction. Ask six things about one advert and you pay for one reading and five follow-ups.
Claude does this for you. It keeps the handle from the first answer and sends it back with the next question, so you can simply keep asking.
Questions
- Does this work on the Claude mobile app?
- Yes. The connector is attached to your account rather than to a machine, so it works in Claude on the web, on desktop and on iOS and Android without any further setup.
- Do I need an API key?
- No. You sign in with your Playhead account when you add the connector. API keys exist for people calling the API from their own code, and are not needed here.
- Can Claude watch a private or unlisted video?
- Only if it is reachable without a login. For anything behind an account, upload the file instead: in Claude Code and other local clients you can pass a path, and the file is uploaded once and reused for every later call.
Or somewhere else
One account, every client. The connection is attached to you rather than to a machine, so adding a second one costs nothing.
Claude Code
claude mcp add --transport http playhead https://mcp.tryplayhead.com/mcpNo deeplink exists for the terminal, so this is the install.
- ChatGPT
- Cursor
- VS Code
Codex
codex mcp add playhead --url https://mcp.tryplayhead.com/mcp codex mcp login playheadBoth write to ~/.codex/config.toml, which the CLI, the IDE extension and the desktop app share.