VLC media player, a popular open-source software developed by the non-profit VideoLAN, has had 6 billion downloads worldwide and is teasing an AI-powered subtitle system. A new feature automatically generates real-time subtitles – which may be translated into multiple languages - for any video using an open-source AI model that runs locally on the user’s device, eliminating the need for internet connectivity or cloud services, VideoLAN demoed at CES . The company did not say when it plans to launch the feature. VideoLAN started in 1996 as a project by students at Ecole Centrale Paris who were trying to stream video on campus. Unlike many open source projects that struggle to survive on donations, VLC has maintained a free, ad-free model while developing for multiple operating systems. The media player continues to operate without advertising, data collection, or commercial revenue streams. “The number of active users of VLC is growing, even in this age of streaming services,” VideoLAN president Jean-Baptiste Kempf wrote in a LinkedIn post. VLC creates automatic subtitles and translations based on local and open source AI models that run on your machine for offline use, and supports many languages! A demo can be found at the #CES2025 booth in Eureka Park. pic.twitter.com/UVmgT6K4ds — VideoLAN (@videolan) January 8, 2025
