The VideoLAN Forums

Sorry, I'm sure regular users will immediately be cross to see a thread with this title. Please pardon a frustrated amateur.

Normally I never use subtitles anyway but I am in China trying to teach medical English to students.

So I have been showing them certain medical films and for one in particular I managed to get hold of some subtitle files with the extension .sub

Problem is I can't get this (otherwise wonderful) media player to display them.

Oh I HAVE searched the forum btw and read how you're supposed to do this:

"To open a subtitles file, use the Advanced Open dialog box (Menu File, Open file). Select your file by clicking on the Browse button. Then, check the Subtitle options checkbox and click on the Settings button."

But it doesn't work. I have installed Vobsub and it still doesn't work.

Does anyone know a solution... please?

Oh I'm using version 0.8.2. Of course I know there's a newer version but that doesn't work either, (and what's more annoying is that when I installed this newer version (0.8.4a) I was offered a choice of language. Of course I selected English, but when installation was complete most of the menus were still in Chinese, which I'm afraid I haven't learnt to read yet.)

Installing Vobsub won't help with VLC. But if you are using Vobsub subtitles (sub+idx) you have to locate idx file, not the sub.
So you chech the subtitle options tick, press Settings... and Press Browse... and choose the subtitle file and after that Press OK twice?

A huge thank you for that! They are now working!

For anyone else as slow as me let me just say that in this situation the key seems to be that you must ensure the .sub file and the .idx file have exactly the same name, (except for the file extension of course, you must leave that .sub and .idx).

Of course they have to be in the same folder, and you have to actually switch them on by clicking on VLC's Video Menu, where you will see a 'Subtitle Track' tab, where you choose the language you want.

Isn't life grand when stuff works!