Lietuviškai← SubPlayer · VLC AI subtitles
Last updated: 2026-06-21
So you read that VLC is getting AI subtitles, opened the app to try it — and there's nothing there. You didn't miss a setting. The feature is real and it was announced, but it hasn't shipped. Here's the honest status, what it will and won't do when it lands, and how to watch a movie in your language tonight if you'd rather not wait.
Short answer: no. As of mid-2026, VLC's AI subtitle generation still isn't in a public release.
The VideoLAN team showed it off in early 2025 — subtitles generated locally from a video's audio, no internet required, built on whisper.cpp (an open-source speech-to-text engine). It demoed well. But a demo isn't a download, and there's still no firm date. If you went hunting for the option in your copy of VLC and came up empty, that's why.
When it does arrive, here's the part most write-ups skip.
What it will do: listen to a video's audio and write subtitles from it, on your own machine, offline, across a wide range of languages.
What it won't do: translate the subtitles a movie already has. That's a different job. If your film ships with English subtitles and you want them in Lithuanian, an audio-based generator isn't aimed at that. And there's no telling yet how good the translation will be — especially for smaller languages, where literal output tends to fall apart.
A few honest options while you wait:
SubPlayer is a Windows player built around one job — you open a movie, and the subtitles show up in your language. If the file already has subtitles in another language, it translates them. If it has none, it listens to the audio on your PC and writes them from scratch. Either way it syncs them to the dialogue, and you can drag, resize and recolor them while you watch.
Two things it does that VLC's feature won't: it translates a movie's existing subtitles, and it uses context-aware translation that holds up for smaller languages — Lithuanian, Latvian, Polish and the rest — where word-for-word tools mangle the meaning.
To be straight about the trade-off: SubPlayer is paid after a one-movie free trial, and it's Windows-only for now. VLC's feature, once it ships, will be free. If price is your only concern and you can wait, VLC may be all you need. If you want subtitles in a smaller language working tonight, that's the case for SubPlayer.
| SubPlayer | VLC (upcoming) | |
|---|---|---|
| Available now | Yes | Not yet |
| Generate subtitles from audio | Yes | Yes (announced) |
| Translate existing subtitles | Yes | No |
| Context-aware translation | Yes | Unknown |
| Smaller languages (e.g. Lithuanian) | Strong | Unknown |
| Video stays on your computer | Yes | Yes |
| Setup | Right-click → Open with | Wait for release |
| Cost | Free trial, then €9.99/mo (or €59/yr) | Free |
There's no official release date. It was announced in early 2025 and is still in development, so the honest answer is "not yet, and nobody outside the team knows exactly when."
No — its feature generates subtitles from audio. To translate an existing subtitle file into your language, you'd need a different tool. SubPlayer does that, and generates new ones too.
For watching a downloaded movie in your language right now, SubPlayer is a solid pick on Windows. If you can wait and only need audio-based subtitles, VLC's free feature is worth holding out for.
Not officially. You can download existing subtitles with the VLSub extension and run a Lua script to translate them, but the timing is often off and it's fiddly to set up. A purpose-built tool handles the same job in one step.
It depends on the tool. VLC's planned feature runs fully offline. SubPlayer transcribes the audio locally on your PC too; only the plain subtitle text is sent for cloud translation, and the video file itself never leaves your computer.
Sources: VideoLAN's AI subtitle demo and coverage — gHacks, Tom's Hardware.
More on getsubplayer.app: how SubPlayer compares · features and pricing · Terms · Privacy