If you happen to be involved in the downloading of videos off the net, you probably have CCCP. If you don’t have it, get it, you’ll thank me later (not technically true, but perhaps you will remember me telling you to get it). The problem at hand today was that while I have a rather extensive collection of (legally) downloaded anime, none of the subtitles seemed to work under Windows 7. I had just downloaded the latest CCCP version (2008-09-21), so that wasn’t the issue. I googled up some people complaining about subtitle issues in WMP (Windows Media Player) but that wasn’t my issue either, as I always use MPC (Media Player Classic). As it turned out, the sub issue was limited to my MKV files (always the MKV’s that have issues, see also: ubuntu). After some digging around on the CCCP forum I found the answer.
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Launch MPC > Click “View” > Click “Options” > Select “External Filters” > Click the “Add Filter” button > Select “DirectVobSub (Auto-loading version)” > Click “Ok” > On the right hand side, click the radio button for “Prefer” > Click “Ok” > Exit MPC and Restart MPC.**
After that, I had no problems with subtitles in any anime. I tried a few including some 720p’s and I had no play issues. In fact, while playing those high quality MKVs I checked the CPU burn and it was negligible, maybe 30% tops. For an MKV that is really good, I’ve seen them burn in excess of 80% CPU power. Maybe Windows 7 is an improvement after all.
Update: More than few of the comments left below include other options that may work for getting subtitles to work, or how to get them to work in Windows Media Player. If you know of any other options, leave em as a comment. Thanks!