Rabbit-Force Subs

First off – we use x264 for encoding, so to decode, you’ll need at least a ~1GHz processor (this value can vary depending on OS, software, etc).
Second thing – codec packs are evil. Don’t install them, if you have one – uninstall it, it just adds unwanted thrash to your PC.

ZOMG this turned out to be a really long post… Good luck :D

OK, now we can start the fun :D I know that the following steps might seem to involve a lot of work (well, maybe not a *lot* of), but once you set it, it’s set :D

Windows:
1. Download and install ffdshow (links to the left, clsid’s build should be OK and up to date). You might want to make sure during installation that H264 and vorbis decoding is checked. On the ‘Speakers setup’ page you can either enable the ffdshow mixer (by selecting your number of speakers) or turn it off. That depends on your speaker configuration and soundcards’ drivers.
2. Now run the “Video decoder configuration” from the Start menu. Make sure none filters are checked, go to “Tray, dialog & paths” and select ‘None’ for the tray icon, if you don’t want it ;) If you PC is slow, go to the Codecs page, select ‘H.264/AVC’ and check ‘Skip deblocking always’.
3. You can disable the tray icon for the audio decoding part of ffdshow too.
4. Now, download and extract Media Player Classic (MPC). Of course you can use a diffrent player, but MPC is the best and highly configurable.
5. Before running MPC let’s do one more thing – download VSFilter. Extract VSFilter.dll (if you have a relativly new OS, like Win XP/2000/2003/BlehVista, go for the Unicode Release). You can extract it wherever you want, just don’t forget where :)
6. Damn, one more thing – download and install Haali Media Splitter. Most problems with playing MKV (Matroska) files are caused by old/bad splitter (or no splitter at all).
7. OK, *now* we can get to configuring MPC :> Run it, press O. Appart from the usual stuff – associating with video files, changing the logo, etc, let’s do more ^_^ Go to ‘Output’ page. Check either VMR7 (renderless) or VMR9 (renderless). They are *required* for the subtitles to be shown (Note: if for some reason they fail, try the Overlay Mixer). Under “VMR7/9 (renderless)” & “DirectX 7/9 Settings” you can select the resizing method for your video. Note: PS 2.0 = Pixel Shader – meaning, that method will use your video card to make some calculations and probably will result in a better image.
8. Now, wait, we’re not finished :o Go to ‘External Filters’ and click ‘Add Filter…’. Find you VSFilter.dll (now, where did I put it?). Now, in your ‘External Filters’ window you should have two entries – DirectVobSub and DirectVobSub (auto-loading version). For both select ‘Prefer’ in the options to the right.
9. BTW, DirectVobSub is used for displaying the subtitles:D Just so you know what you’re installing :P
10. Now double click ‘DirectVobSub (auto-loading version)’. A configuration window should appear. There are a lot of options you can configure here, but for now let’s focus on the ‘General’ tab. Look on the Resolution part. If you select ‘Double resolution’, the video’s size will be doubled which will lead to a heavier CPU load *but* the subtitles will look a lot better. The ‘Double if smaller than’ option is useful, so that the video won’t be resized when playing HD content.
OK, here’s some explanation – if you don’t set, say, 900×600 resolution, the HD video will be resized to double its size (for example – from 1280×720 to 2560 x 1440 :O) and then resized to your monitors’ resolution. However, you won’t see any improvement in the quality of the subtitles, more likely, they will look worse than normal :/ So, first off, see if your PC can handle the double resolution option for, let’s say, a release by Rabbit-Force. And check if you see a diffrence in the quality of the subtitles – it should be very obvious. Now, if you like this option and don’t mind the extra CPU load, you might consider selecting the ‘Double if smaller than’ option with, e.g. 900×600 res, taking into consideration what I wrote earlier.
OK, almost there…
11. Now, play a MKV file. You should see a Matroska icon appear in your sys tray. Double click the icon. Go to ‘Options’. From the ‘Input’ part select ‘Load embedded fonts’ and select ‘Yes’. Now, go to ‘Output’ section. Here you can select which audio tracks will have higher priority (like jap dub > ang dub). Here are my settings (note, I’m a eng dub hater >:)
Audio Language Priority – jpn
Subtitle Language Priority – eng
Audio and Subtitle Languages – jpn,eng
So, what these settings mean? Select jap dub whenever possible and eng subs. Note that this might not be useful for our releases (”now you’re telling me that?!”) but for other groups that add eng dubs, it’ll save you some traumatic experiences ;) Or just do like me – remux the files without the ang dub :P

12. Now, go to… nah just kidding, this is all ^_^
And since you’ve read all the way here, here’s a hint – if you’re lazy go for the CCCP pack, it’s a codec pack made for the anime community and it should be free of bloatware, but I still prefer to setup everything myself.

Another thing – you can try the CoreAVC decoder (instead of ffdshow) – it’s a lot faster than ffdshow but it’s not free…

Linux section to come…