VideoLAN showcases AV2 playback on a “normal” laptop with VLC 4

VLC 4.0 was showcased at CES 2026 playing AV2 media

VideoLAN, the non-profit behind VLC Media Player, attended CES 2026 to showcase VLC 4, an in-development version of VLC Media Player, playing AV2 content.

AV2 is the Alliance of Open Media’s (AOMedia’s) next-generation video codec. AV2 is the successor to AV1 and aims to deliver greater efficiency. Like AV1, AV2 will be a royalty-free standard. Overall, AV2 is expected to be approximately 30% more efficient than AV1, enabling higher-quality video streaming.

At CES, AV2 media was showcased playing on a “normal laptop” using VLC 4. The AV2 codec is expected to be released soon. The codec was expected to be released before the end of 2025, but it appears its release has been delayed until this year.

First demo of upcoming new open codec AV2, with playback inside VLC4 at #CES2026 on a normal laptop!

AV2 is coming soon and it's developed by the @a4omedia to have the best royalty-free video codec!

If you want to see the demo during #CES26, contact us! pic.twitter.com/BVEUoJLLcV

— VideoLAN (@videolan) January 7, 2026

When asked about VLC version 4 on Twitter/X, VideoLAN stated that VLC 4 contains “a lot” of UI updates. Additionally, VideoLAN confirmed that an “Intel n100” CPU would be able to handle AV2 playback. This implies that AV2 media will not be hard to play on most consumer devices.

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