The VLC media player, a popular open-source software developed by the non-profit VideoLAN, has surpassed 6 billion downloads worldwide. It recently touted an artificial intelligence-powered subtitle system.
The new feature automatically generates real-time subtitles — which can then also be translated into multiple languages — for each video. It uses open-source artificial intelligence models that run locally on users' devices, eliminating the need for an internet connection or cloud services, VideoLAN's developers say in their app presentation at CES.
The company did not say when it planned to release the app to everyone.
VideoLAN started in 1996 as a project by students at Ecole Centrale Paris trying to broadcast video across the campus. Unlike many open source projects that have struggled to survive on donations, VLC has maintained its free ad-free model while expanding to multiple operating systems. The media player continues to run ad-free, collects no data, and does not monetize commercial streams.
"The number of active VLC users is actually growing, even in this age of streaming services," VideoLAN president Jean-Baptiste Kempf wrote in a LinkedIn post.
As we mentioned above, automatic creation and translation of subtitles in VLC will be performed by local and open source artificial intelligence models that will run on your computer and work even offline by supporting multiple languages!
VLC automatic subtitles generation and translation based on local and open source AI models running on your machine working offline, and supporting numerous languages!
Demo can be found on our #CES2025 booth in Eureka Park. pic.twitter.com/UVmgT6K4ds- VideoLAN (@videolan) January 8, 2025
George is still wondering what he is doing here….
I don't see any AI. I don't know if it has been released or will be released in general.
To this day, a month later, VLC's AI feature has not appeared.
As of today, 14/2/25, no version with this feature has been released.