groq-whisper-mcp
MCP server for audio/video transcription via Groq-hosted Whisper. Word-level timestamps, automatic caching, cost estimation.
9x cheaper than OpenAI Whisper — same model, different API.
| Provider | Model | Cost/hour | |----------|-------|-----------| | Groq | whisper-large-v3-turbo | $0.04 | | Groq | whisper-large-v3 | $0.111 | | Groq | distil-whisper | $0.02 | | OpenAI | whisper-1 | $0.36 |
Prerequisites
- Python 3.10+
- ffmpeg (for audio extraction from video)
- Groq API key
Installation
git clone https://github.com/bis-code/groq-whisper-mcp.git
cd groq-whisper-mcp
python3 -m venv venv
venv/bin/pip install mcp openaiClaude Code Configuration
Add to your project's .mcp.json:
{
"mcpServers": {
"whisper": {
"command": "/path/to/groq-whisper-mcp/venv/bin/python",
"args": ["-m", "server"],
"cwd": "/path/to/groq-whisper-mcp/src",
"env": {
"GROQ_API_KEY": "your-groq-api-key"
}
}
}
}Tools
transcribe_video
Transcribe a video file with word-level timestamps.
| Parameter | Type | Required | Description | |-----------|------|----------|-------------| | video_path | string | yes | Path to video file | | model | string | no | Whisper model (default: whisper-large-v3-turbo) | | force_retranscribe | boolean | no | Bypass cache (default: false) |
Returns full text, word-level timestamps [{word, start, end}], and duration. Results are cached per-project.
estimate_transcription_cost
Estimate cost before transcribing.
| Parameter | Type | Required | Description | |-----------|------|----------|-------------| | video_path | string | yes | Path to video file | | model | string | no | Whisper model (default: whisper-large-v3-turbo) |
Returns duration, estimated cost, and comparison with OpenAI pricing.
How It Works
- Extracts audio from video via ffmpeg (128kbps MP3, falls back to 64kbps if >25MB)
- Sends to Groq's OpenAI-compatible API (same
openaiSDK, differentbase_url) - Returns word-level timestamps with ~0.1s precision
- Caches results as
whisper_words.jsonalongside the video
Running Tests
PYTHONPATH=src venv/bin/pytest tests/ -vLicense
MIT
