VideoRecompress Studio plugin
Windows 10/11 only. There is no Mac or Linux version: on a Mac or Linux machine the plugin installs, but its
server cannot start.
Use VideoRecompress Studio from your AI agent on your Windows PC: shrinking video files with H.265/AV1 and GPU encoding, one file or a whole folder. You ask in plain words and the
agent does the work on files on your computer. It works with any agent that runs local MCP servers: Cursor,
Claude Code, Codex, VS Code, Windsurf and others.
Ask your agent
- "Shrink the videos in my phone backup folder and tell me how much space I got back."
- "Compress my drone footage, but test one clip first and show me the quality score."
- "Make this video small enough to send on WhatsApp."
VideoRecompress Studio also works without an agent: open it from the Start menu and work in its own window.
Price and trial
- $79, a one-time purchase. No subscription needed. Prices: https://www.contenta-software.com/videorecompress/buy.php
- The free trial has no end date: the first 10 files per PC are unrestricted, later ones are watermarked and cut at 10 minutes.
videorecompress status shows how many free files are left; a batch spends one per file. Nothing stops working; a licence removes the limits.
- After buying, the licence key arrives by email. Enter it in VideoRecompress Studio's Register page, or run
videorecompress register <email> <key> in a terminal. The key does not need to go through the chat.
Install
Claude Code (Windows): two commands, typed inside Claude Code. This repository is its own one-plugin
marketplace, named after the repository:
/plugin marketplace add contentasoftware/videorecompress-studio-plugin
/plugin install videorecompress-studio@videorecompress-studio-plugin
From a terminal the same is claude plugin marketplace add contentasoftware/videorecompress-studio-plugin and claude plugin install videorecompress-studio@videorecompress-studio-plugin.
Cowork and the Claude.ai directory: install VideoRecompress Studio from the directory once it is listed.
Cursor, Claude Desktop, VS Code, Codex and other MCP clients (mcpServers JSON):
"videorecompress-studio": { "command": "cmd", "args": ["/c", "npx", "-y", "@contentasoft/videorecompress-mcp"] } (needs Node.js 18+), or,
once the app is installed, "videorecompress-studio": { "command": "videorecompress", "args": ["serve"] } with no Node.js at all.
Client-by-client instructions: https://www.npmjs.com/package/@contentasoft/videorecompress-mcp
What you need
- Windows 10 or 11 with VideoRecompress Studio installed. It has a free trial: https://www.contenta-software.com/videorecompress/download.php
(if it is not installed yet, the
get_started tool gives the agent the download link and the steps).
- Nothing else for the Claude Code plugin: its launcher is a Windows batch file (
server/launch.cmd) that starts the
app's own MCP server. Node.js is not required; only the npx route for other clients needs it.
- An agent that runs on that computer. Browser chat apps cannot start local programs, so they cannot use these
tools.
What is included
- MCP server
videorecompress-studio with the tools recompress_video, batch_recompress, get_file_info, estimate_savings, list_presets, list_formats, get_license_status. Each tool
says whether it only reads files, writes new files, may overwrite files, or uses the internet.
- Skill
contenta-video: how and when the agent should use those tools and the videorecompress command line.
For developers
-
Windows 10 and 11, 64-bit only. There is no macOS or Linux version.
-
videorecompress never waits for input or shows a dialog, so it runs unattended from Task Scheduler or a script.
To compress each new video saved to a folder while you are signed in, start watch at logon; it runs until you sign out or close its window:
schtasks /create /tn "VideoRecompress Studio watch" /sc onlogon /tr "videorecompress watch D:\Camera -o D:\Compressed --preset phone_archive"
-
Every command takes --json and prints one JSON object on stdout (logs go to stderr): success, exitCode, error, warnings, errors and outputs, plus the trial fields when they apply. Add --progress for one {"type":"progress",...} line per finished file before that object.
-
Exit codes: 0 done · 1 unexpected error · 2 invalid arguments · 3 input not found or unreadable · 4 some items failed (the others are written) · 5 nothing succeeded · 6 the licence or trial refused the run · 130 cancelled. The four ContentaSoft command lines share this table.
-
The skill (skills/contenta-video/SKILL.md) tells the agent which commands to use.
Full CLI and MCP reference
Every videorecompress command, option and exit code, the JSON output and every MCP tool with its parameters:
Privacy
- Videos are compressed on this PC. They are not uploaded, and compressing needs no internet connection.
- The app sends usage statistics (which tools ran, which MCP client connected, trial state) and crash reports to
ContentaSoft, tagged with a hashed machine ID. They never contain your files; a crash report can contain a file
name, but folder paths are removed. To turn them off, open the app and
go to Settings, Privacy: Send usage statistics and crash reports. The same switch covers the command line and the
MCP server. On a PC where nobody opens the app, set
"allowUsageMetrics": false in %APPDATA%\VideoRecompressStudio\settings.json.
- Privacy policy, with the full list of what is sent: https://www.contenta-software.com/videorecompress/privacy.php
What runs
- As a Claude plugin it runs
server/launch.cmd from the plugin folder, which looks for videorecompress.exe in the app's
install folder (%LOCALAPPDATA%\Programs\VideoRecompressStudio), on your PATH or in Program Files, and runs
videorecompress serve. Nothing is downloaded. If the app is missing, the bundled Node launcher (server/index.js, the same
bytes as the npm package @contentasoft/videorecompress-mcp, MIT, no dependencies; source: https://github.com/contentasoftware/mcp-launcher)
or, without Node.js, the Windows PowerShell stub server/stub.ps1 serves one tool, get_started. Neither sends
anything over the network.
- While Claude Code uses the skill, it can use the plugin's MCP tools and run the app's own command-line tool in Bash or
PowerShell without asking (
allowed-tools: Bash(videorecompress *) PowerShell(videorecompress *) Bash(videorecompress.exe *) PowerShell(videorecompress.exe *) mcp__plugin_videorecompress-studio_videorecompress-studio). That permission ends when you send your next message.
Other commands follow your own Claude Code permission settings.
License
This plugin and the launcher are MIT-licensed (see LICENSE). VideoRecompress Studio itself is commercial software by
ContentaSoft AB.
