Hacking Windows 7 Media Center

Loading Subtitles with DirectVobSub (VSFilter)

by Michael Healy @ 9:30 am on July 1st, 2009 in codecs, subtitles with 19 Comments and Permalink

media player classic home cinema logo Showing subtitles for anything other than recorded TV in Windows 7 Media Center can be a tricky business. One method is to force Media Center to play your video through FFDShow, which has built in support for subtitles, but accomplishing that has been less than easy for a large number of users and seems to get more difficult with each revision of Windows 7 Media Center.

Luckily, there’s a way to enable subtitle support without interfering with the default Microsoft decoders. There is a downside however, this will interfere with DXVA playback and is unlikely to work with extenders. If that’s an acceptable compromise to get subtitles working on your HTPC continue on to install VSFilter and get subtitles working for your video content in Media Center.

default microsoft media foundation codec playback

By default, using the native Microsoft Windows Media Foundation codecs for playback will result in a graph similar to the one above. These decoders are ingrained quite deeply in the infrastructure of Windows Media Center and can be quite hard to disable or replace with third party solutions.

This is what brings us to using DirectVobSub (VSFilter). DirectVobSub will load along side the default decoders without having to make any drastic modifications to the file system or registry.

vsfilter loaded

To get start we’ve got VSFilter, along with an installer, available for download in a 32-bit version as well as a 64-bit version. To install, extract the files from the archive (zip) and place them in your root C:\ drive. Then run the enable .bat file as administrator. If you need to install the filters to a different location edit the .bat file in notepad and change the directory to suite your needs.

subtitles

Once you’ve extracted the files and run the .bat file to enable the filter that should be just about all there is to it. If your subtitles are properly encoded for your setup you should begin seeing subtitles immediately. To change the options for VSFilter you’ll need to use a program such as Filter Manager or Graphstudio to access the properties dialog.

For example, you’ll likely want to enable VSFilter to only playback forced subtitles under most circumstances. This, along with a number of other options, can be set through these property pages.

forced subs

You should now be all set to start displaying subtitles in Windows 7 Media Center without the hassle of disabling the default Windows Media Foundation decoders! Perhaps in the future we’ll see a method to switch subtitle streams and even display subtitles properly inside Windows 7 Media Center built-in or through a plugin without the need for FFDShow or other third-party hacks.

19 Comments


James
Comment #1947 from James [Reply]

Is there any way to enable subtitles in Win7 and still have DXVA functioning? I have a lot of 720p and 1080p anime in h264/MKV format that i’d like to have DXVA and subtitles working at the same time on.

Comment left July 1, 2009 at 5:16 pm with Permalink
@Reply #1949 from Michael Healy [Reply]

It’s possible in Windows 7 but not in Media Center at the moment. You can get both from a program like Media Player Classic – Home Cinema but there isn’t a decoder yet that will do both simultaneously under Media Center.

Comment left July 1, 2009 at 6:37 pm with Permalink

londong
@Reply #8358 from londong [Reply]

hi michael, this comment was written in july 09, is there now a way of keeping dvxa with subtitles in 7mc with mediabrowser for an ion nettop?

i have haali installed and dloaded ffdshow but didnt install it yet as i was scared

any advice?

cheers

Comment left March 8, 2010 at 12:52 am with Permalink

merdzd
Comment #1961 from merdzd [Reply]

i`m just install Klite codecs and all subs if the are have same name as .video file. Working in MEdia center.

Comment left July 2, 2009 at 6:30 am with Permalink

Gonz
@Reply #7675 from Gonz [Reply]

Does this method work with mkv files?

I mean, if I had a movie.mkv and a movie.srt files in the same folder will it work in Media Center?

Comment left February 14, 2010 at 10:35 am with Permalink

Daniel
Comment #2915 from Daniel [Reply]

Thanks!
Been looking for this!

Comment left August 27, 2009 at 6:46 am with Permalink

RitchieTheBrit
Comment #2928 from RitchieTheBrit [Reply]

I think those zip files are corrupt, I only see the DLL inside, and WinRAR sees them as incomplete.

Comment left August 27, 2009 at 4:10 pm with Permalink

rene veen
Comment #3329 from rene veen [Reply]

Thanks alot

This was the missing link to get subtitles in windows 7 vmc with mediabrowser playing MKV’s
I use mkvmerge to force subtitles
It works perfectly

Grts

Rene

Comment left September 18, 2009 at 8:24 am with Permalink

Jonny Bee
Comment #3330 from Jonny Bee [Reply]

Is it possible to switch subtitle streams from Windows Media Player or Windows Media Center?
If I play a movie in MediaPlayer Classic and use VobSub to display subtitles, then pressing S on the keyboard switches between subtitles. Unfortunately, this does not happen on Windows Media Player (it also uses VobSub to display the subtitles, but pressing S has no effect).

Thank you!

Comment left September 18, 2009 at 8:32 am with Permalink

Joost
Comment #4173 from Joost [Reply]

Excellent, works like a charm! Thanks!

Comment left October 23, 2009 at 11:42 am with Permalink

kivo
Comment #4637 from kivo [Reply]

Looking forward to a new plug-in to display subtitle on 7MC. I’m using Nvidia ION+Atom system which is not affordard to disable DXVA during HD video playback.

Comment left November 8, 2009 at 1:01 am with Permalink

Space2099
Comment #5046 from Space2099 [Reply]

This is driving me nut!

Can some please explain how I get into the VSFilter settings?

There must be an easyer way to get into these settings than going through Filter Manager or Graphstudio. Niether of which seem to have a listing for VSFilter.

Either I have done something wrong or I’m looking in the wrong location for the VSFilter settings.

I need some help.

Comment left November 23, 2009 at 10:18 am with Permalink

pdawg
Comment #6017 from pdawg [Reply]

Kivo,

Get CoreAVC, it will accelerate with ION natively in MC7 and you can still have subs with VobSubFilter. Set VobSubFilter to load subs automatically, then make sure your MKV’s have the desired sub set to forced. Very easy to do. Use TSmuxer to demux the streams then mux back together using mkvmerge (google both of those). You can set sub to be forced in mkvmerge.

Comment left December 26, 2009 at 3:52 pm with Permalink
Comment #6351 from Christian Schulz [Reply]

Thanks for a great site. I have soved many problems with your help so far. Working on my subtitles now (srt in MKV)
I am using CoreAVC for decoder and I have followed this guide. I get Grapphstudio to display that the Direct VobSub filter is loaded (exactly like 2.nd picture in this guide). I still can not get Mediaplayer to show my srt SUB. Any idea of what I am doing wrong?

I am on a 64 bit system.

/C

Comment left January 5, 2010 at 3:12 pm with Permalink

Anonymous
Comment #6433 from Anonymous [Reply]

Open Haali Media Splitter Settings, Options, Compatibility. Set Autoload VSFilter to yes.

Comment left January 8, 2010 at 10:16 am with Permalink

Oyjord
Comment #8131 from Oyjord [Reply]

Thanks for the help getting these subs working! But when I get to “Then run the enable .bat file as administrator” in your instructions I get lost. I’m a Win7 newb, any chance you could explain this a bit? I searched my PC for any such .bat files and couldn’t find them. Thanks!

Comment left February 27, 2010 at 2:44 pm with Permalink

tontoe
Comment #8178 from tontoe [Reply]

Hello,

I’m trying to play MKV files on my xbox 360 which i bought to play HD content on my TV. So I have a movie that I want to play on my xbox

I currently use Moyea Converter to get the MKV-AVI but I lose quality of the audio by using it. It seems only to convert to stereo 128 kpbs (maybe because I’m using the trial) This allows me to play the movie with HD quality but the sound is not as good as I want. I got the system to play at the top (without the cost of a PS3). Then I get the free subtitles somewhere and I use AVI ReComp to hardcode them onto the movie/tv show because my girlfriends english is not perfect or some movies are in foreign languages.

I was hoping to find some easier way to do this. I’ve tried using Media Coder but it doesn’t start all the time, seems to have audio issues with the client, or sometimes no output. I’m pretty good with software but this stuff is all new to me. Please can someone help me. I would really appreciate it. The guides and all that have been confusing usually with some key point or information not clearly explained.

I’ve tried all the guides with FFFDShow but it still doesn’t help, maybe cause my Windows 7 is on the MAC bootcamp

Thank you

Comment left March 1, 2010 at 4:12 am with Permalink

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