SoC 2025
This page gives the current list of ideas for VideoLAN project, for the Google Summer Of Code 2025 program.
The list is long, but it is not exhaustive, and not limitative. Feel free to apply with your own idea!, we love original ideas and value them.
Contents
- 1 Introduction & Information
- 2 How to Start
- 3 Ideas for VLC & libVLC
- 3.1 Advanced Audio Filters
- 3.2 VLC Qt interface redesign
- 3.3 VLC Skins2 interface update
- 3.4 VLC macOS interface redesign
- 3.5 VLC watchOS port
- 3.6 iced ui for VLC
- 3.7 Improve Android MediaCodec support
- 3.8 Add back netsync module
- 3.9 VLC iOS UI update
- 3.10 Qt integration tests
- 3.11 Cloud integration for desktop
- 3.12 Improve libNDI and integrate in VLC
- 3.13 Update the Lua integration
- 3.14 Implement DVD-Audio deciphering
- 3.15 Radio-Browser integation
- 3.16 Port the remote access webserver to VLC Desktop
- 3.17 demux Rust bindings and AVI module for VLC
- 3.18 integrate checkasm tooling and improve existing asm coverage
- 3.19 libvlc Wayland API
- 3.20 Other short ideas for VLC & libVLC
- 4 Ideas for VideoLAN infrastructure
- 5 Ideas for dav1d
- 6 Ideas for libplacebo
- 7 Ideas for VLC dependencies
Introduction & Information
This page covers the VideoLAN program as a mentoring organization for Google Summer of Code, in order to improve VLC, VLMC and dav1d (or the libVLC engine), but also the VideoLAN infrastructure and some other related projects.
We have projects in C, C++, ASM, JS, Wasm, Go, Obj-C, GPU Shaders, C#, Java/Kotlin and Swift.
Summer of Code
Google Summer of Code is a way for anyone to work on open source projects and become top developers, while being paid by Google.
VideoLAN was a Google Summer of Code mentoring organization in 2007, 2008, 2009, 2010, 2011, 2013, 2016, 2017, 2018, 2019, 2020, 2021, 2022, 2023 and 2024.
This page lists some ideas for Summer of Code projects on dav1d, libVLC and VLC media player, but also on VLC infrastructure projects.
We accept ideas also on other multimedia projects related to VLC media player.
VLC & libVLC
VLC media player is a cross-platform multimedia player, encoder and streamer application. It is one of the most successful open-source projects worldwide.
VLC media player is downloaded at an approximate monthly rate of 25 millions from the main website and that's not including third-party distributions (Linux)!
You can find more information on VLC on Wikipedia or on this wiki.
The engine of VLC is libVLC, and is used by VLMC and mobile versions of VLC.
dav1d
dav1d is the reference AV1 decoder that is shipped inside VLC, Chrome, Edge, Firefox, Windows and macOS/iOS.
It's a very low-level codec, mostly written in C and assembly.
Summer of Code rules
If selected and developed, SoC projects for dav1d and VLC will be included in later releases.
All projects are covered by the GPL (v2+) or LGPL (v2.1+) licenses depending on the module. Projects on dav1d are BSD licensed.
The VideoLAN Code of Conducts applies to all Summer projects.
How to Start
Find an idea
First, you need to find an idea.
This current page gives you a list of ideas. Those ideas are NOT exhaustive: you can bring your own idea! Some of the best ideas we've ever had were custom ideas!
The duration of the projects is indicative, and can be adapted, if needed.
Submit your idea
You need to submit your idea on the Google Summer of Code platform.
You should do so, very quickly, even before having finished compilation and the next steps, so that we can give you early feedback.
Compile VLC or libVLC
This may sound trivial, but it's harder than many expect. You must compile the project you want to work on.
See https://wiki.videolan.org/Category:Building/ for more informations.
You should come on IRC to get help to compile.
Provide a small patch
To demonstrate your skills, share a small patch with us. This will let you become familiar with Git, in case you don't know it already and our process on our gitlab.
Let's get in touch
If you have a doubt, are not sure about anything or want clarification, please get in touch with us.
We have 3 major communication channels:
- Our mailing-lists to discuss patches and further development related topics;
- Furthermore, we have our web forums for VLC-related end-user support - a VLMC section will be created once the product is published.
- Finally, there is our IRC channel #videolan (for libVLC) and #vlmc on the libera network. It's open to any kind of discussion. Usage issues, questions how to compile VLC/VLMC, getting to know the fellow developers, etc.
Ideas for VLC & libVLC
Advanced Audio Filters
Project Description: We are looking for a skilled audiophile that knows a lot about audio theory and practice to work on new audio filters for VLC.
Duration: 350h
Tasks to do:
- SRS WoW like or other 3D effects;
- channels mixing, notably upmixing, like Prologic-II;
- tracks mixing, and transitions;
- scriptable new audio filters in lua and enable users to create whatever audio filtering function they want in a Lua script;
- LADSPA or other libraries integration.
Requirements: This project needs some good audio knowledge and good C experience.
Qualification task: Port any audio filter from MPlayer
Proposed mentor: unidan
VLC Qt interface redesign
Project Description: The VLC interface is quite outdated on Linux and Windows. It has a lot of features, but some are not properly exposed.
We are currently reworking the interface, but we need help.
Duration: 350h
Scope of the tasks to do:
Use the new designs shared on the mailing list, and help developping part of those, using Qml.
This new interface is simpler, more user friendly, and has a better "media center" feel into it.
It requires integration with the media library and with the current interface.
Qml is the technology needed to improve the current UI.
Requirements: This project requires Qt/C++ knowledge, and qml would be a nice plus.
Proposed mentor: Pierre
VLC Skins2 interface update
Project Description: The VLC Skins2 interface was not updated for the latest interface and core changes for the media player and playlist engine yet.
We are currently reworking the interface, but we need help.
Duration: 350h
Scope of the tasks to do:
- wayland integration
- video integration rework (like Qt interface)
- medialibrary integration
Requirements: This project requires Qt/C++ knowledge, and qml would be a nice plus.
Proposed mentor: Pierre
VLC macOS interface redesign
Project Description: The VLC interface is quite outdated on macOS and we are currently in the process of re-writing it to give it a modern feel, but also to integrate recent additions to libvlc regarding playback control and library management.
This project for the summer is to rework heavily this interface to make it beautiful and useful again.
Duration: 350h or 175h
Scope of the tasks to do:
There is a full design already done and tested. The major hurdle is to actually implement it the way we want it to be. The iOS/tvOS interface is simpler, more user friendly, and has a better "media center" feel into it, which influenced what we want to achieve on the Mac. Note that the objective is to use AppKit. UIKit will not be part of this project.
Iterating from the current UI and closely collaborating with the team currently working on it is a requirement.
Requirements: This project requires Obj-C knowledge, a thorough understanding of OOP and proven previous Mac development experience. You cannot use swift for this project.
Proposed mentor: David Fuhrmann, Felix Paul Kühne
VLC watchOS port
Project Description: VLCKit recently added support for playback of audio files on watchOS with support for http streams coming in a future update. The idea is to create a new, standalone app for watchOS that can play local files on device with a good way to synchronize those either from a computer or the app on the companion iPhone. The UI development needs to be done in SwiftUI following the restrictions of the platform.
Duration: 350h
Proposed mentor: Diogo Simao Marques, Felix Paul Kühne
iced ui for VLC
iced is a cross-platform UI library for Rust. The project aims to provide a VLC iced Widget as first step and then a full UI as complete as possible within the time available.
Tasks
- Revamp and publish the VLC-rs bindings
- Create an iced Widget similar to what exists already forGStreamer
- Increase the richness of the UI gradually
- First normal direct playback (play pause seek)
- Add volume controls
- Add support to manage subtitles
- Expose the VLC configuration knobs (one subset at time)
Duration: 175h
Proposed mentor: Luca Barbato
Improve Android MediaCodec support
Project Description: The goal is to fix few bugs (black screen with some device/video, HDR issues), and to improve the download of MediaCodec surfaces to the CPU
Duration: 175h
Scope of the tasks to do:
- Fix MediaCodec bugs https://code.videolan.org/videolan/vlc/-/issues/?sort=updated_desc&state=opened&label_name%5B%5D=Component%3A%3AVideo%3A%20Android&first_page_size=20
- Fix download for all kind of chromas/size/offset/crop (Decoding Acceleration in the vlc-android app)Duration: 350hRequirements: Those will be done in C, and it requires familiarity with the android dev environment and hardware decoders.
Proposed mentor: Thomas Guillem
Add back netsync module
Project Description: Use the new vlc clock to add back the netsync module
Duration: 350h
Scope of the tasks to do:
- Use a new network protocol: RTP Midi
- Expose some vlc_clock APIs to be used by "control" module
- Plug the vlc_clock API inside the new module
Requirements: Very good C knowledge
Proposed mentor: Thomas Guillem
VLC iOS UI update
Project Description: We're currently in the process of rewriting and updating the entire UI for VLC iOS
There is a lot of components that need refactoring and need to get an updated UI.
The Android port of VLC has done most of that and was successful. We need the same level of features.
Duration: 350h or 175h
Tasks to do:
- Get an overview of the current App and components that need an update
- Refactor and give the appropriate components a new look
- See what is missing compared to the Android version
- Code it :
Requirements: This project requires Obj-C and Swift knowledge and ideally knowledge of writing tests for iOS but this can be learned.
Proposed mentor: Felix Paul Kühne, Diogo Simao Marques
Qt integration tests
Project Description: In order to improve the robustness of our application, we would like to develop integration tests for the Qt interfac.e The goal being to ensure that new features and refactors won't break other parts of the UI.
Duration: 350h or 175h
Scope of the Tasks to do:
- study existing solutions used in other open-source projects (https://invent.kde.org/sdk/selenium-webdriver-at-spi)
- adapt test framework to our environment
- write sample test cases
- study CI integration feasibility (Linux and/or Windows tests)
Requirements: This project requires Qt/C++ and some scripting language (pyhton?) knowledge, Qml would be a nice plus.
Proposed mentor: Pierre
Cloud integration for desktop
Project Description: We want to be able to access Cloud Storage services (Dropbox, Google Drive and so on) in the VLC application.
Duration: 350h or 175h
Scope of the Tasks to do:
- revive libcloudstorage
- integrate libcloudstorage inside VLC
- write sample test cases
Requirements: This project requires C++ knowledge.
Proposed mentor: Pierre
Improve libNDI and integrate in VLC
Project description: Improve the libNDI project supporting the NDI protocol to support more formats.
Duration: 350h
Tasks to do:
- Study the NDI protocol, implement and test and integrate inside VLC.
Requirements:
- NDI understanding
- C knowledge.
Proposed mentor: j-b
Update the Lua integration
Project description: The current extension implementation in Lua needs more love to make them first class citizen (they are currently loaded by GUI instead of the core).
Duration: 350h
Tasks to do:
- update libvlccore to load Lua extensions instead of the GUI
- work on a better descriptive abstraction for lua stream parsers extensions which needs to extract data from the webpage. (currently done by manual read())
- more testing infrastructure for the scripts
Requirements:
- Lua and C knowledge, c++ is a plus
Proposed mentor: Alexandre Janniaux
Implement DVD-Audio deciphering
Project description: Support DVD-Audio deciphering using dvdcpxm
- https://offog.org/git/dvdaexplorer/
- http://www.thescrapyard.org/software/libdvdcpxm.html
- http://forum.doom9.org/showthread.php?t=167537
- https://sourceforge.net/projects/dvdadecoder/
Duration: 350h
Tasks to do:
- Understand DVD-Audio
- Implement VLC module based on those modules
Requirements:
- Audio likeness
- C knowledge.
Proposed mentor: j-b
Radio-Browser integation
Project Description: Integrate the Radio-Browser.info API in a service discovery module so it is available on all of VLC's platforms.
Duration: 175h
Tasks to do:
- Study and understand the REST API
- Implement a VLC module based on the API
- Add a way to favorite channels
Requirements:
- previous experience with REST APIs
- C knowledge
Proposed mentor: Felix
Port the remote access webserver to VLC Desktop
Description: To remotely access and control a VLC instance, a webserver has been developped for VLC Android. The goal is to port it to VLC desktop.
Duration: 350h
Tasks to do:
- Extract the web client code from the VLC for Android reprository to a dedicated one
- Write the server part in VLC desktop using lua scripts
- Adapt the client to be compatible with the new VLC desktop web server
Requirements:
- js, Vue, lua, websockets
Proposed mentor Nicolas
demux Rust bindings and AVI module for VLC
VLC has already its first Rust (logger) module: https://code.videolan.org/videolan/vlc/-/commit/e8e46b0d915d153a58d002c9d6f19a7dbdfeeca9 There was a proposal to add several Rust bindings and example: https://code.videolan.org/videolan/vlc/-/merge_requests/2738
Tasks
- Adapt demux API Rust bindings to upstream VLC
- Add a new AVI demux module to test the new bindings (Using the nom crate: https://crates.io/crates/nom/)
Duration: 350h
Requirements: Good C knowledge and very good Rust knowledge
Proposed mentors: Thomas Guillem and Alexandre Janniaux
integrate checkasm tooling and improve existing asm coverage
VLC has some amount of existing assembly (yadif, video chroma) but we lack test coverage for it and also could use more for newer architectures
Tasks
- Integrate checkasm for validation (against a C baseline) and benchmarking (similarly to what's done in dav1d)
- Convert the existing assembly to use it
- Add new optimizations for things like audio/video format conversions, filters and also for newer arch's (riscv etc.)
Duration: 175h or 350h
Proposed mentors: Marvin Scholz, Nathan Egge, Tristan Matthews
libvlc Wayland API
In order to allow easy integration of VLC video rendering into application that uses Wayland, similarly to what we provide for X11 or HWND.
Duration: 175h
Scope of the Tasks to do:
- Provide a method to expose external Wayland surface and additional mechanisms to libvlc.
- Write a sample application to illustrate how to use the API
Requirements: This project requires some good C experience
Proposed mentor: Pierre Lamot
Other short ideas for VLC & libVLC
Those ideas are not detailed, but they are ideas that we could help to spring new ideas. We can help work with you to make those more detailed.
Those ideas should be 175h long
- Improve Vulkan output for VLC, including HDR support
- Improve id3 tag and metadata handling in VLC
- Bridge module for GMI'C or other video filters
- Automated Testing Environment like ffmpeg Fate (port ?) for demuxing, non-hw decoding
- Integrate libavfilter in VLC
- Improve the libVLCSharp bindings for VLC in C#
- Provide setups for popular streaming services / sout templates (ui ?)
- Improve cue support in VLC
Ideas for VideoLAN infrastructure
Improve the VideoLAN crash reporter in Go and Vue.js
The idea is to improve the current crash reporter of VLC, called CrashDragon.
The tasks are the following:
- Review the current code
- Improve the API in Go
- Write a new Vue.js frontend
Those will be done in Go and JS
Duration: 350h
Proposed mentor: David and j-b
Ideas for dav1d
dav1d RISC-V optimizations
Improving the performance of the AV1 decoder is very important for VLC and the whole ecosystem.
It requires to:
- Understand of RISC-V assembly
- Understand a bit what a video decoder is
- Write RISC-V functions
Requirements: This project requires C and ASM knowledge, as well as system programming skills
Duration: 175h
Contact 'j-b'
dav1d GPU Compute Shaders
Improving the performance of the AV1 decoder is very important for VLC and the whole ecosystem.
This project requires to port one of the filter, like SGR or Wiener to one of the Shader languages. iPhones or Xbox One would be a good target.
This is a tricky project, but is doable during the summer
Duration: 350h
Requirements: This project requires C and GPU Shaders knowledge, as well as system programming skills
Contact 'j-b'
dav1d statistics extractions
The dav1d AV1 decoder is a new high performance AV1 decoder by VideoLAN.
Current open source tools for AV1 analysis use instrumentation in the reference decoder libaom to extract decode-time metadata for display and reporting, but support for sophisticated analysis is lacking.
To speed development of AV1 tools like the rav1e, it would be helpful to add similar decoder metadata extraction APIs to the dav1d decoder so that rapid testing of encoder algorithms is easier. This includes the ability to quickly produce statistics, visualizations and other reporting that can be used for tuning encoder parameters or guiding development. Advanced ideas include adding similar encoder metadata API to rav1e that add encode-time visualizations.
Requirements: This project requires C knowledge.
Duration: 175h
Contact 'unlord'
Ideas for libplacebo
Direct3D 11 backend
Project Description:
libplacebo uses a GPU abstraction with a number of backends. The goal would be to add a new backend based on Direct3D 11, since Vulkan and OpenGL support on Windows are often of limited quality, especially for older hardware.
Lots of example code for how this implementation would look can be found as part of the mpv project .
Large parts can be copy/pasted and adapted to the libplacebo API.
Tasks to do:
- Add a new `pl_gpu` backend based on Direct3D 11
- Integration into the build system, test framework and CI infrastructure
Requirements:
- Knowledge of C as well as, ideally, graphics API fundamentals. (But the latter can be learned as part of the project)
- Ability to develop and test on Windows
Duration: 175h
Contact 'haasn'
Dolby Vision Profile 5 (IPT-PQ)
Project Description:
Dolby IPT-PQ is a HDR color space similar to ITU-R ICtCp, but with proprietary Dolby modifications (reshaping algorithm). Your goal is to implement this reshaper in the form of a GLSL shader, using knowledge from known Dolby patents and dumped headers.
Tasks to do:
- Figure out, and (if necessary) reverse engineer the stream format for the Dolby reshaping algorithm described in several of their patents.
- Implement this algorithm in GLSL
- Integration into libplacebo (optional)
- Test against reference implementations of Dolby Vision profile 5
Requirements:
- Knowledge of GLSL and C. Knowledge of colorspaces in general is an obvious plus, but the theory here is not important - only the implementation.
- (Possibly) Ability to reverse engineer any still-unknown or differing-from-patents parts of the stream headers.
Knowledge of libplacebo internals is not required, since the skeleton code for this already exists - what's missing is the reshaping algorithm.
Duration: 350h
Contact 'haasn'
GPU motion interpolation (mvtools)
Project Description
Your goal is to develop GPU shaders for motion-adaptive frame interpolation in the style of [mvtools](https://github.com/dubhater/vapoursynth-mvtools).
This is an open-ended project. If not completed, any progress towards this goal is good enough.
Sub-goals:
- Recreate the motion vector search algorithms from MAnalyze
- Implement the pixel masking and pixel flow algorithms from MFlowFps
These can be tackled and complete out-of-order.
Requirements:
- Good knowledge of both C and GLSL, especially compute shaders and other GPGPU techniques. (CUDA or OpenCL skills also transfer, though the shader will have to be GLSL)
- Ideally, general knowledge of video processing techniques (e.g. motion vector search) - at least enough to be able to understand what mvtools code is doing.
Duration: 350h
Contact 'haasn'
Ideas for VLC dependencies
libmicrodns refactoring
Our current mDNS discoverer is working, but is not so respectful of the RFC. Possible improvements include:
- Device TTL support
- Device removal detection
- Better request pacing
- Delegate socket interactions to the caller
- Unit testing
- Fuzzing
Requirements: This project require C knowledge, as well as system programming skills
Duration: 175h
Proposed mentor: tguillem
VideoLAN Google Summer of Code (GSoC/SoC) mentoring projects |
2007 • 2008 • 2009 • 2010 • 2011 (GCi 2011 • SOCIS x264 2011) • |