How to display subtitles for DivX movies on MCE

I am currently setting up a new Windows Media Center 2005 HTPC and just tried to watch a French movie, which I have ripped to DivX. I do not speak French, and so I would like to have English subtitles so that I may understand the plot. When I ripped the movie, I also created a subtitle file (.srt) with SubRip. The .srt file has the same filename as the .avi file, obviously with a different file extension (.srt vs .avi). I expected that when I played the movie in MCE that the subtitles would just appear. They do not. Something must be done to enable this first.

I am writing to you, dear reader, to tell you that I have found what needs to be done, and here it is: you need to install VobSub, in particular the "VobSub for Directshow" plugin. That is all, you don’t even need to restart. I actually paused the move, installed VobSub and when I went back to the movie it had subtitles. You can find VobSub here. Right now the current version is 2.23, which was released in 2002, so don’t think that you can’t find the latest.

pinkjoint, mce, media center, vobsub, subtitles, divx, htpc

11 thoughts on “How to display subtitles for DivX movies on MCE

  1. Dude! You’re the man. I thought I would have to convert to some funky MS version of .sub or .idx but vobsub works with everything i’ve tried. You just saved me alot of researching this problem… Thanks!

  2. Yes, everything works perfectly except for Greek subtitles which I work with. I have no problem with any other programs, even media player. If I play through MCE it comes out with mixed up characters. Have you an answer for this one? I use .srt and .sub files

  3. Damned apparently it doesn’t work with MCE on Windows 7 RC…
    Any idea ? Thanks

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