Subtitle Tracks in .mkv files on Mac OS X

Summer is the time when I spend way too much time watching anime. And when you are watching that much anime, you really want to make sure that you get the subtitles to display decently or your eyes will just hurt. Usually this is not a problem since most fansubbed anime embed the subtitles directly into the movie (.avi, .mp4, etc) file itself. However, nowadays, the Matroska .mkv file format has been gaining popularity. In the .mkv format, the subtitles are no longer embedded into the movie track but included as a separate resource that you can enable/disable at will.

Till now, there are two popular applications that can be used to open .mkv files on the mac: VLC and MPlayer. I prefer VLC because it has a better interface and is updated more frequently. And VLC seems to be open almost all video file formats. Now, there is a new plug-in called Perian for QuickTime that has been updated to enable .mkv files to be played inside QuickTime itself. And I must say, the results are fantastic. Here are some comparisons