VLC Media Player Showcases AI-Powered Subtitle Generation, Translation Feature at CES 2025

VLC media player, the open-source project developed by VideoLAN, is getting a new artificial intelligence (AI) feature. At the recently concluded Consumer Electronics Show (CES 2025), the project showcased an AI-powered subtitle feature that can generate and show subtitles on the fly. The feature also supports real-time translation and can instantly generate translated captions in multiple languages. The media player's AI feature will be powered by open-source and local large language models (LLMs) and function offline. There is no word on when this feature will be rolled out to users.

VLC Gets AI-Generated Subtitles Feature

AI-generated subtitles have grown in popularity in recent times. Samsung unveiled its new Vision AI technology for displays that can generate subtitles in real-time. Google previously added an Expressive Captions feature to all devices running Android 14 or newer in the US.

In a post on X (formerly known as Twitter), VideoLAN president Jean-Baptiste Kempf showcased the new AI feature for the VLC media player and highlighted that the subtitle generation and translation are based on local and open-source AI models.

Open-source AI models are those that are available in the public domain and can be used and built into software without paying the developers or the parent organisation any licensing fee. Some of the examples include Meta's Llama 3.1 405B, Mixtral 8x22B, and Alibaba's DeepSeek.

VideoLAN is using such open-source models (the team did not reveal the name of the AI model) locally to add the AI-generated subtitles feature natively. Since the feature is built into the application, it can work locally and without requiring cloud support.

While the team did not address whether it would substantially increase the basic requirements needed to run the VLC media player, it stated in a post, “The goal is to not depend on an expensive cloud operation!”

Notably, VideoLAN showcased AI-generated subtitles in English, French, Hebrew, German, and Japanese languages. Kempf also claimed that eventually, VLC's AI-generated subtitles feature will support more than 100 languages. The project has yet to announce a release date for the feature.