HOW TO INPUT CHINESE SUBTITLES INTO VLC MEDIA PLAYER: STEP BY STEP
Hello there. You must be here because you met with the problem that after you put in the subtitles all you see are white squares. Bummer isn't it. Follow these instructions for a quick solution:
1. Download the subtitles file (SRT files) from http://www.subtitlesearch.org or my favourite piratebay.se - these are the sites I find relatively safe. I also have McAfee working for me so it takes out trojan horses whenever it spot them and I haven't had troubles with these two sites before. (Then again there's always a first)
2. In VLC Media Player, go Tools > Preferences > Subtitles & OSD, make sure your settings are as such:
In particular,
Position: Bottom-Left
Default encoding: Universal, Chinese (GB 18030)
Font: LiSong Pro (儷宋 Pro) (Arial Unicode MS may also work, try that first!)
Font Size: Normal
The VLC Media Player is very fussy and only accepts LiSong Pro (儷宋 Pro) (Previous link no longer works, Comment below with your email address and I can send it over by email). Put the downloaded font into C:\Windows\Fonts. SimSun and all other fancy Chinese fonts don't cut it for VLC.
3. Close VLC Media Player and re-open (the font doesn't reflect immediately so you need to close the window). Right-click at the movie and select Subtitles and select your subtitles file to the place you saved it at. It should work perfectly fine now.
Enjoy. :)