The VideoLAN Forums

I have a problem, that when I try to play a file with arabic name, or in a folder with Arabic name, VLC player can't play it.
I am not sure if this is because of my windows preferences, or VLC itself can't play files with Arabic names ??

I just answered this yesterday or the day before. Try searching "Arabic".

I just answered this yesterday or the day before. Try searching "Arabic".

First Thanks DJ for your response.
Second, I got no answer with this response. I checked the forum for the word arabic, but all what I found is problems about displaying arabic subtitles, and I have already given up solving problem.
The only thread which was relative to my problem is that one
viewtopic.php?t=15475&highlight=arabic
But UNFORTUNATELY in this thread I find no solution to the problem. I don't know if I understood correctly , but I found no SOLUTION.
So Can you tell me brifely if there is a solution to this problem or if it is still unsolved??
Also if you can target me to the specific thread you are speaking about I would appreciate that if it has the solution
Thanks

A number of users have had this issue with both Hebrew and Arabic. It is a matter of choosing the correct Subtitle text encoding.

viewtopic.php?t=24161
Subtitles text encoding

http://alis.isoc.org/codage/iso8859/jeuxiso.en.htm
ISO Standard for various characters sets

And selecting a compatible Unicode font that will join the characters.

ARIALUNI.TTF is known to work, but comes only with Microsoft Office.

Hi DJ
Thanks again, but I am afraid that this is a reply to a question I didn't ask
I don't care about subtitle, but what I say is that the file which has arabic NAME, or placed in a folder with arabic name can't be played, and have to rename the folder and file in English to be able to play it in VLC.
Is this a problem with my system (Windows XP sp2) or it is common with VLC?
Is there a way to solve tis without renaming files?
Thanks again

Oh! That was clear!

I have NO idea. Some people have issues with spaces in filenames that is clearly a Windows issue for that particular system. Others have had issues with accents that was clearly an issue with VLC. This would be a developer question. Try making friends with a Hebrew and ask them.

Thanks DJ for your patience
I will follow your advice
ANY ISRAELI WHO SOLVED THIS PROBLEM WITH HEBREW IS AROUND HERE ??

That's a good start for world peace rather than hatred and greed for world dominance. Now comes the debate for oil rights and VLC could be in there somewhere???

I have a similar problem with filenames that have French-accented characters in them on my English Windows XP machine: Vlc just won't open the file.

I think it isn't doing the unicode->user-code-page conversion correctly so that when it tries to do the reverse conversion when asking the Windows file system for the file the conversion turns out to be irreversible.

Every copy of Windows actually has (at least) 2 8-bit code pages defined: the Ansi code-page and the OEM code-page. Ansi is a misleading word since there's nothing Ansi approved about it but that's what they call it. The Ansi code-page is used for things like the non-unicode versions of the file system API calls made by programs, the OEM code-page is used to interpret user keystrokes.