The VideoLAN Forums

Every time I run a video that has embedded subtitle files, the subtitles show up and I have to manually turn them off. There is NO check box or way in preferences to disable subtitles automatically showing when a video file starts playing. I have to use a keyboard to enter S, or more often shift-S when there are multiple subtitle files embedded. This is a pain as 90% of the time I never wish to see subtitles and my home theatre setup has the keyboard nowhere nearby.

Can the developers of this app PLEASE either make subtitles OFF by default or have a check box in preferences to let the user decide whether they show by default.

My work around is to kill all OSD which cripples a lot of the other useful screen overlay features of VLC for MacOS. I have also tried in preferences making the subtitles 0% opacity but sadly this also makes ALL OSD whether subtitles or not also have 0% opacity. Clearly the code for OSD and subtitles has been mashed together and I assume this will need to be corrected and segregated so control of subtitles is a subset of OSD and not the dominant function of OSD...

I am using the latest ver 3.0.6 for MacOS.

Thanks for reading this. Feedback from other users appreciated.

Hi, I don't use the MacOS interface, but there should be at least a command line parameter --no-spu which is different that --no-osd. Don't you have the option to disable subtitles altogether in "subtitles and OSD", in the preferences window here ?

on a MAC go to VLC>Preferences> in the bottom left corner there is a show all button click it. Left panel select input/codecs in the right panel search for Subtitle track ID and change it to 0. Hit save and you should be good to go, I do agree with you it should be much more simple like having a check box under subtitles / OSD