VLC celebrates 6 billion downloads, teases AI-generated subtitles and translation
What just happened? VideoLAN hit the Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas this week to showcase some AI-based enhancements destined for its popular VLC media player. Chief among them is automatic subtitle generation, which runs on local and open-source AI models rather than having to tap into a cloud-based service.
As President Jean-Baptiste Kempf demonstrated in a video shared on VideoLAN’s X account, the tech will also be able to translate subtitles to your preferred language on the fly. According to Kempf, more than 100 languages will eventually be supported.
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
The Verge notes that AI-powered subtitling has been in development for a while now, albeit as a plug-in that uses OpenAI’s Whisper speech recognition system. What VideoLAN is showing off at CES, however, is built directly into the VLC executable and works in real time.
VideoLAN also used its time at CES to celebrate a new milestone: over six billion downloads worldwide.
VLC was originally conceived as a client / server to stream video from satellite dishes in the late 90s, but was eventually rewritten from the ground up and released under a GNU General Public License in early 2001. These days, it’s among the most popular cross-platform media players on the market. The program is beloved by fans for its ease of use, compatibility across a variety of operating systems, and support for a range of video formats, and is even a TechSpot Editors’ Pick.
Six billion downloads is no doubt an impressive milestone, but it may be on the conservative side. Presumably, VideoLAN is only counting downloads from its own site. If true, it wouldn’t account for the numerous additional downloads tallied from third-party hosts. I’m not sure how one would get a more accurate estimate of true downloads, but surely it’s more than 6 billion.
Kempf didn’t say when the new AI-based features would find their way to the public release of VLC media player. The latest release, version 3.0.21, dropped in October 2024 and is available for Windows, macOS, and Linux.
