I can reproduce your last point, especially with my own DVB-T recordings. That's really annoying indeed. I'll see if can create a sample file and will create a proper bug report on trac.
Actually, for this particular scenario, the problem occurs 100% of the time when there’s an external subtitle file detected by VLC.
I have no problems playing back H.264 (mkv, avi, mp4) files where SRT files are available. But for an m2ts (.ts or .tp file), VLC simply refuses to cooperate — and has been like this since the 1.0.x days.
I’ve posted a reply here (
viewtopic.php?f=12&t=80812&p=267240#p267240) on the issue, in more detail.
Any help would be much appreciated.