How to have Claude turn a long video into vertical shorts

“Turn 0:05–0:15 and 0:30–0:40 of this episode into vertical shorts with captions.” If Claude can do that from a video on your PC, making clips from every episode stops being a chore. This guide shows how to connect TemaShort, a Windows app from TemaLab that turns long videos into vertical shorts, to Claude Code or the Claude desktop app so Claude can drive it.

TemaShort does the face tracking, captions and export on your PC. By default, Claude only gets file locations and lengths back, not the captions or the video (section 5 explains when content does reach Claude). Making shorts from AI is a full-version feature (section 6).

Use it on videos you have the right to clip: your own podcast, streams, courses, webinars and talks.

1. How it works

Claude and TemaShort are connected through MCP, the standard way to give AI assistants tools. Claude reads your request and passes the video, time ranges and options to TemaShort; TemaShort finds the faces, frames each clip in 9:16, makes the captions and writes the MP4 files. Claude can use five tools:

• make_shorts: make vertical shorts from time ranges. Layout follow (one face), stack (two people, top and bottom) or fit (whole frame); switch to the speaker; captions; cut silences; .srt files
• transcribe_video: write a timestamped .srt of the speech (the text goes to Claude only if you ask)
• export_shorts: export shorts you made and adjusted in the TemaShort window
• inspect_video: length, size, whether there's audio
• license_status: full or free version

Captions can be in English, Japanese or Chinese, or detected automatically. Tell Claude “it's an English show” and it passes that on.

2. Set it up (once)

Install TemaShort first (the free version is enough to connect and check; making shorts from Claude needs a full-version license key). In TemaShort, choose Help > “Use from AI (register with Claude)…”. It shows the setup for your PC with copy buttons.

Claude Code (and the Code tab of the desktop app): run this one line in a terminal such as PowerShell. Replace <user> with your Windows user name — the “Use from AI” window shows the exact line for your PC.

claude mcp add --scope user temashort -- "C:\Users\<user>\AppData\Local\Programs\TemaShort\TemaShort.exe" --mcp

If claude mcp list shows temashort as Connected, you're ready.

The Chat tab of the Claude desktop app: add it to the config JSON.

1. In the Claude desktop app, open Settings > Developer > Edit Config to open claude_desktop_config.json
2. Paste what you copied with “Copy config JSON” in TemaShort's “Use from AI” window and save. If there's already an mcpServers section, add only the "temashort": { … } part inside it
3. Quit the Claude desktop app and open it again

{
  "mcpServers": {
    "temashort": {
      "command": "C:\\Users\\<user>\\AppData\\Local\\Programs\\TemaShort\\TemaShort.exe",
      "args": ["--mcp"]
    }
  }
}

You can also save an extension file (temashort.mcpb) from the same window and double-click it to install.

3. What to ask

Ask in plain language. Include the video's location (for example C:\Users\…\Videos\episode-12.mp4), the timestamps, and an output folder if you want one. Times can be written like “12:30” or “1:02:03”.

• “Turn 0:05–0:15 and 0:30–0:40 of episode-12.mp4 into vertical shorts with captions” (the most common request)
• “Make a short from 3:10–4:00 of this podcast, switching to whoever is speaking. It's an English show”
• “Make a short from 5:00–5:45 of this lesson with the title ‘Plan your week in 3 lines’ at the top”
• “Make 20:00–21:00 of this interview a vertical video with both people stacked”
• “Cut the silences and export .srt files too”
• “How long is this video?” (works in the free version)

Not sure which parts to clip? Ask “Transcribe minutes 30 to 60 and show me the text”, then “Suggest three parts that would make good shorts, and why”, then “Make those three into captioned shorts”. In this case the transcript text is sent to Claude (see section 5).

Files are named “<original>_short_01.mp4”, “_02” and so on, in the folder you name or next to the original video. If a file with the same name exists, TemaShort stops before starting and Claude asks whether to overwrite. Your original video is never changed.

4. What you see, and how to stop it

TemaShort opens on its own if it was closed. A bar at the top says “AI at work: making 2 shorts from episode-12.mp4” with a Stop button, and you can watch it move through the steps: faces are analyzed in Framing, speech is transcribed in Subtitles, and each short is written in Export.

To stop, press Stop in the bar. It stops right away and Claude is told you stopped it. Shorts are written to a temporary .part file and renamed only at the end, so after a stop nothing is left behind — not even shorts that had finished. When the job is done, the shorts stay in your project: you can adjust the frame or captions in the window and export again. To skip the window, ask Claude to do it “without opening the window”.

5. Our test, and what Claude sees

In our development test, we asked the real Claude Code to “make captioned vertical shorts from 0:05–0:15 and 0:30–0:40”. It exported two shorts, 1080×1920 and 10 seconds each, in 107 seconds. Your times will depend on your PC and video, and the first captions also need the transcription model downloaded once.

We also checked captions in other languages on test recordings made with synthetic voices: an average word error rate of 2.3% across four English recordings, 0% on a two-person English meeting (both speakers correctly separated), and a 0% character error rate on one Chinese recording, with automatic language detection getting it right. Real recordings will have more errors, so check the captions before you post.

By default, TemaShort returns only the exported file locations, time ranges, lengths and number of caption lines. It doesn't send the captions or the video to Claude. Content does reach Claude (an AI service) when:

• you ask for the transcript text, for example to have Claude suggest clips (the caption text is returned)
• you ask Claude to check the result (small preview frames from the middle of up to four shorts are returned)
• Claude opens an exported video or .srt file

For private recordings, give Claude the timestamps yourself and don't ask it to read the content. TemaShort has no feature that sends files anywhere or deletes them.

6. Free vs. full version

Making shorts, transcribing and exporting from AI (Claude) or the command line is a full-version feature. The free version can connect, check the license and inspect videos (length, size, audio). If you ask the free version to make shorts, it reads nothing, doesn't open its window, and Claude is told:

“Making, transcribing and exporting shorts from AI is a full-version feature. In the TemaShort window, the free version lets you try every feature (exported shorts get a watermark).”

In the TemaShort window, the free version has every feature, so you can check the face tracking and captions on your own videos first. It may also work with other AI tools that support MCP (we've tested it with Claude). You enter the license key in TemaShort under Help > License… (not through Claude). Claude Code and the Claude desktop app are separate products, and Claude is not included in the price of TemaShort. Claude's replies from TemaShort follow its display language (English, Japanese or Chinese).

For the command line (TemaShort.exe --cli, temashort.cmd) and troubleshooting, see the “Use from AI” chapter of the user guide (PDF). To make clips by hand in the app, see How to turn a podcast or interview video into vertical shorts.

Published: October 27, 2026 · TemaLab