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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

While playing back MKVs in Media Center only requires that you have the correct splitters and decoders installed these more advanced features require a deeper level of support. That’s where a handy Media Center plug-in called Media Control comes in.

Media Control adds support for switching audio and subtitles streams, chapter markers, fast forward and rewind for all FFDShow decoded formats, refresh rate changing and more. In fact Media Control has so many features packed in it’s hard to get a handle on them all.

When starting a movie with multiple subtitle or audio streams Media Control will pop-up a small dialog allowing you to quickly enter the menu for switching streams. The dialog only appears for a few moments but once the video is playing you can enter the full options of Media Control through the start menu as well.

From the main Media Control menu you’ll have access to almost any feature available through FFDShow’s configuration dialogs. Change video settings, audio and subtitle delays, post processing and more right from inside Media Center with easy to use controls.

After installing the plug-in you’ll need to run the configuration program included. Provided inside you’ll find a tab marked FFDShow Configuration. You’ll need to run this to get FFDShow setup properly for use with the plug-in, apply the recommended configuration and you should be all set.

By default Media Control will place a new start menu strip in your Media Center menu. If you’d prefer to have the icon appear in our custom Media Browser strip just download and apply this registry file after installing Media Control. (Grab the new theme from Theme7MC, Midnight Magic, while you’re at it too!)

Of course, this is only scratching the surface of what Media Control is capable of doing so you’ll be sure to see more of this handy tool on Hack7MC soon!

Before we get started we need to have a few tools ready. First off you’ll need to have a way around any disk encryption present. The easiest and most expedient way to do this without having to rip the entire disk over again is to use AnyDVD. AnyDVD is a tool that any Media Center enthusiast should have available and is well worth the price. We’ll cover this tool more in-depth at a later time.

For now, we’ll obviously also need to have SubRip downloaded and installed. Download the latest version of SubRip and extract the files to your hard drive. Upon launching SubRip you’ll quickly notice that the interface is somewhat less than intuitive.

With the DVD in the drive and AnyDVD running press the VOB button in the toolbar. This will bring up a dialog allowing you to choose the file to rip subtitles from. Press the Open IFO button and browse to the DVD drive, then into the Video_TS folder. Each set of files in this directory corresponds to a track on the DVD, select the IFO file of the track that you ripped your movie from. If you’ve selected a track that contains subtitles an information dialog should appear and the language stream dropdown box will be populated.

SubRip will also automatically select all the matching VOB files from the disk that go with this track. Before beginning it’s worth noting that after running SubRip successfully you’ll be given the option to save a character matrix file. Subtitles do not exist as text on the disk and are instead images that need to be translated into text by SubRip.

During processing SubRip will prompt you to help it with deciphering the images into text and will “learn” as the process goes on. Loading this file each time will result in SubRip becoming more efficient in processing your DVDs’ subtitles saving you quite a bit of time. For now press “Start” to begin processing subtitles for this track.

For complete subtitles be sure to uncheck the “Forced Subtitles Only” checkbox under Options –> Global Options. Enabling forced subtitles will only extract subtitles for sections of the movie which would display subtitles regardless of the subtitle setting of the player. For example, foreign dialog in an otherwise native language movie would be forced subtitles.

As mentioned above, during processing you’ll be prompted to correct any characters that SubRip can’t decipher into plain text. A small dialog box will appear where you will be required to enter all the letters inside the highlighted area. Only enter the highlighted characters from inside the red box into the input box then press “OK”.

During processing you’ll notice that SubRip has learned these characters and no longer asks you to verify them manually. Once the process has completed you’ll be given the option to save these manual entries to a character file which you can load next time, saving you from having to enter them again.

Once the movie has finished save the text output by pressing the floppy disk icon in the Subtitles window. Choose you desired font and size then save the SRT file to your movie’s directory.

Most decoders will now pickup the SRT files contained in the movie directory. If you still don’t receive subtitles you may want to check your codec setup. FFDShow by default will load the file that comes first alphabetically if multiple files are in the same directory which is something you may want to keep in mind if you are using multiple subtitle files.

Now that you’ve got your SRT files can also use MKVMerge to combine your video and subtitle files into a single package!

This is one of those things that can be a little confusing for beginners (and even some old hats). We are all conditioned to think of subtitles as those forced captions for the hearing impaired delivered by TV broadcasts. In FFDShow Video, however, subtitles are often used during scenes which would normally be forced to display subtitles on your average DVD player (known as “forced subtitles”).

For example, the Chinese dialog in the recently released “The Day The Earth Stood Still (2009)” will leave viewers scratching their heads throughout the rest of the movie without the proper subtitles. (Though you may well be doing that in any case as it wasn’t that great a movie..)

Enabling subtitles in FFDShow Video is no difficult affair. Simply open up the FFDShow Video Configuration and check the subtitles option in the left hand pane. For more advanced options select subtitles and have a look at the left hand options. There are plenty of settings which will allow you to adjust the placement and acceptable formats for subtitles.

Additional options that allow you to adjust the font and size of the captions displayed by FFDShow can be found under the “Font” submenu under Subtitles. Other than that there shouldn’t be much you need to do to enable subtitle support in FFDShow Video. Just sit back and enjoy!

Be sure to stick around on Hack7MC to get even more help with your Media Center codec setup in the future!

To get started download and install the MKVToolnix program from the MKVToolnix website. This amazing little open source product comes in a variation for almost every platform. Once you’ve got it install run the MKVMerge GUI from the programs menu to open the merging program. The interface is simple for beginners but has enough features to satisfy most any user.

For the basic user, getting started is as simple as adding the separate parts of your video to the input files box using the “Add” button to the right. This will create separate tracks for director commentary, special features, etc. To play one part immediately after another, add the first file then use the “Append” button to add subsequent parts.

The files will be read by the program and display the track information below in the “Tracks” box. Separate video and audio tracks should appear for each part added to the input files. Currently, MKVMerge doesn’t support WMA audio however and can’t be merged. An error will appear in the tracks section if this occurs.

From here just set the output filename in the input at the bottom of the dialog and press “Start Muxing” to begin the merge. No flash, no fuss, this is one of those apps that just works and that’s the best kind.

For more advanced users (or perhaps just more demanding) there are also options to include attachments, split files, set chapters and more. All for the same basic interface you have the ability to attach subtitle files and set chapters for your MKV files. There really isn’t much you can’t do with MKVMerge if you have the time or desire to do so.

Once the process has started merging the files into a new MKV file takes almost no time at all since re-encoding isn’t required to create the new file. This narrows the time spent converting videos down from hours to mere minutes, especially nice for those with larger collections need work. In a matter of minutes MKVMerge will spit out your fresh new MKV file.

This really is one of the simplest programs available and the ability to simply remux videos into MKV as opposed to converting them frame by frame is a godsend. Time is precious, save yourself some time by using MKVMerge from MKVToolnix and you won’t regret it. Best of all it’s free!

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