Player MCP

The Bitmovin Player MCP turns any MCP-compatible chat client — Claude, ChatGPT, and others — into a place where you can play back a video stream inline. You paste a URL, the assistant calls the render_stream tool, and a real Bitmovin Player appears embedded in the conversation.

This is powered by the MCP Apps / MCP UI extension to MCP: the server exposes a UI component that the client renders in a sandboxed frame.

Endpoint

https://agentic.bitmovin.com/player/mcp

Transport: HTTP (streamable HTTP / SSE)
Auth: None

No Bitmovin account is required to render public streams.

Tools exposed

Tool	Description
`render_stream`	Renders a Bitmovin Player inline in the conversation. Accepts the stream URL and, optionally, a full Bitmovin Player `PlayerConfig` and `SourceConfig` (DRM, subtitles, advertising, poster image, etc.).
`control_player`	Controls an already-rendered player — play, pause, seek (absolute or relative), set volume, mute/unmute, change playback speed.

Supported formats

HLS (.m3u8)
DASH (.mpd)
Smooth Streaming (.ism)
Progressive (MP4, WebM)

Supported features via config

Widevine / PlayReady / FairPlay DRM
Subtitle tracks (WebVTT)
Thumbnail tracks
Poster images
VAST/VMAP advertising
Autoplay, muted start, playback-rate presets

Setup

claude.ai (browser)

On Bitmovin-managed Claude workspaces, the Player MCP is already present in the global connector list — no setup needed. Just ask:

"Play this stream with the Bitmovin Player: https://test-streams.mux.dev/x36xhzz/x36xhzz.m3u8"

The player will render inline.

Claude Desktop

Add to ~/Library/Application Support/Claude/claude_desktop_config.json:

{
  "mcpServers": {
    "bitmovin-player": {
      "url": "https://agentic.bitmovin.com/player/mcp"
    }
  }
}

Then fully quit and relaunch Claude Desktop.

ChatGPT

Open chatgpt.com and go to Settings → Connectors.
Click Add connector and select MCP.
Enter the URL: https://agentic.bitmovin.com/player/mcp
Click Save.

The render_stream and control_player tools will now appear in any new conversation.

Example prompts

"Play https://bitmovin-a.akamaihd.net/content/sintel/hls/playlist.m3u8 with autoplay and mute."
"Pause the player. Now seek to 1:30 and resume."
"Play https://your-stream.mpd and enable Widevine with license URL https://license.example.com/widevine."
"Play this MP4 at 1.5x speed."
"Play this VOD and set a VAST ad tag: https://example.com/vast.xml."

Notes

The player is rendered in a sandboxed frame inside the chat client. Some hosts cannot fetch media directly — in those cases the server proxies manifest and segment requests so playback works without requiring the host to reach your CDN. Direct playback is used where possible to minimize latency.
The Player MCP is stateless — it does not log or retain your stream URLs or configurations beyond the scope of a single request.