The VideoLAN Forums

I would like to play a DVD in .iso file or in VIDEO_TS directory with external .srt or .sub subtitle files. Should this work some how from file --> open file... menu? I don't know how. I also tried to rename the subtitle file same way as the .iso file is named but it didn't work. And I tried to drag and drop the subtitle file to the active player window but no subtitles are shown. The subtitle menu under right mouse button shows a new "Track 2" option but no subtitles are ever shown with that track selected.

Can some one help?

Perhaps from the command line??? But external subs do not work well with MPEG 2 files due to the lack of good timing info...

Command line does the same thing. It adds a new subtitle track but no subtitles are visible. The same subtitle file works fine with an .avi file.

I tried it like this:
"C:\Program Files\VideoLAN\VLC\vlc.exe" dvdsimple://C:\movies\ISOmovie.ISO --sub-file C:\subtitles\subtitle.sub
"C:\Program Files\VideoLAN\VLC\vlc.exe" "C:\movies\AVImovie.avi" --sub-file C:\subtitles\subtitle.sub

Is there something that I'm doing wrong or is this a bug? Or shouldn't this work in the first place?

Subs designed for an AVI file are most often not compatible with another file format. As I tried to express earlier, what you are trying to do is sync a sub to a format that has bad external timing info... and this does NOT work. MPEG 2 was designed to have subs internal to the container and the sub must be designed for the format this means in this case a graphics based overlay for the video.

Ok. Thank you for the information.

Timing is not a problem for .srt subs as they use time stamps not frames. I've been able to get srt subs working with dvds (granted some resyncing was needed) via directvobsub but VLC doesn't do that. So timing issues aside, is there a way to get the subs to at least display in VLC? Yeh I could keep using them via my other method but I wanted to switch to VLC for all my media playing needs because MPClassic chokes on some flvs but not others unlike VLC.

EDIT: Ok found mention of the command line method, any way to do it via the menus?

EDIT2:Tried going to (Preferences->Video->Subtitles/OSD) and telling it to use a file. Sometimes things show up, sometimes they don't, sometimes they're out of sync (and I know this file is definately synced).