IINA, VLC media player, and MPV are probably your best bets out of the 5 options considered. 'Fast' is the primary reason people pick IINA over the competition. This page is powered by a knowledgeable community that helps you make an informed decision. I started using IINA around the time VLC 3.0 was released due to playback issues I was having with VLC, such as the A-B loop not always working correctly in VLC, features like variable speed control in playback also doesn't work reliably in VLC 3x. Other things I've compared, are Videos with strange resolutions, now act jerky in VLC 3x. When comparing VLC vs IINA, the Slant community recommends IINA for most people. In the question“What are the best music players for OSX?” IINA is ranked 2nd while VLC is ranked 6th. The most important reason people chose IINA is. IINA is born to be a modern macOS application, from its framework to the user interface. It adopts the post-Yosemite design language of macOS and keeps up the pace of new technologies like Force Touch, Touch Bar, and Picture-in-Picture.
In some areas of the world, if you go to the cinema you might see more than one set of subtitles on screen at once. This is because the country might have more than one major language and so just showing one subtitle language isn’t enough to cater for the majority of watchers. This becomes a problem at home though as DVD/media players and TVs cannot display more than one subtitle at once on discs or when playing video files and you would have to encode the subtitles you want into the video file itself.
Thankfully, this doesn’t have to be the case on a computer and it’s quite easy to display two subtitles on a video at the same time if you have the right media player software to allow it. Here we show you 5 solutions for playing two or more subtitles on your Windows computer, all you need is the video file and the required language SRT subtitle files.
Tip: For best results you should rename the SRT files to nameofvideo.language.SRT, for instance my_video.eng.SRT. Then place the files in the same folder as the video. This way the media player will pick up the subtitles without you having to manually search for them. Also make sure your subtitles are synced correctly or they will display at different times.
1. KMPlayer
KMPlayer has been able to play more than one subtitle at once for quite a few years. Apart from that ability, it also boasts a number of options for displaying, loading and saving the subtitles back out again. Some of the other subtitle features are merging subtitles together, subtitle explorer/editor, syncing, multiple display and effect options, online subtitle finder and the ability to show up to three subtitles on screen at once.
By default KMPlayer will show the first subtitle at the bottom if you have SRT files located in the same directory as the video file. You can add a second by right clicking on the video window > Subtitles > Subtitles Languages > 2nd Subtitle and selecting the file you want to add at the top of the video. Adding a 3rd Subtitle from the same menu will display it on the middle of the image. Be aware that KMPlayer offers adware during install.
Download KMPlayer
2. Daum PotPlayer
PotPlayer is from the same developer that’s responsible for creating KMPlayer who decided to leave that project and start another. Unsurprisingly PotPlayer also has a range of subtitle options like KMPlayer, including a subtitles browser and plenty of tweaking and display options. PotPlayer can show two subtitles on the video at the same time.
How to add a second subtitle onto the video is very similar to KMPlayer, right click on the video > Subtitles> Add/Select Languages > 2nd Subtitle, and select the language to be placed at the top of the video. If the second SRT subtitle file is not in the same folder you can manually load it.
Download Daum PotPlayer
3. Media Player Classic – Home Cinema
Media Player Classic – Home Cinema has been around for years and has gained popularity among PC users, not least for being able to smoothly play full HD content on low end or old hardware. The disadvantage of MPC playing two subtitles at once is it can’t do it out of the box and requires you to do a few things first.
Firstly, you need to install a Directshow filter called VSFilter which takes care of showing the second subtitle. Download and install VSFilter and tick the box to configure it when the install is complete. In the Main tab tick Override placement and enter a vertical (V) number somewhere between 0-25 to put this subtitle at the top. Click OK.
Secondly, open MPC-HC and go to Options (O) > Advanced, double click the BlockVSFilter entry to make it False. Click OK, close and reopen MPC-HC.
When you open a video file and want two subtitles, you can access the the bottom subtitle from the right click > Subtitles menu, the second subtitle is accessed via Filters > “VSFilter (auto-loading version)”, a green arrow icon in the system tray is also visible where you can right click and alter the top subtitle.
If you find playback with two subtitles to be jerky or resource intensive, a fork of VSFilter called XY-VSFilter is faster and more optimized, this should be able to help produce a smoother experience.
Download Media player Classic – Home Cinema
4. BS.Player
BS.Player is one of a few media players that offer a paid version which is a pricey €29.90 for a year’s worth of Pro version updates. Thankfully the free version handles playing two subtitles at once with ease. A few options for uploading/downloading subtitles, timings and how they get displayed are available.
Like the other programs, adding subtitles is very easy. Right click on the video, go to Subtitles and choose Primary or Secondary for a sub menu listing the bottom and top subtitles. BS.Player offers to locally install a number of third party codecs such as AC3 Filter, while not necessary to display two subtitles they may be required to playback your videos correctly.
Download BS.Player
5. Merging the Subtitles into one File
This last method isn’t actually a piece of software but is instead a simple way to display two or more subtitles at once in just about any media player that supports playing SRT subtitle files. It’s is done by simply merging the SRT files from different languages into one main file so you only ever have to load one subtitle SRT. The advantage is this also works for DVD players, TVs and hardware multimedia players that support a single SRT subtitle file.
You can follow the guide in our “How To Add Two or More Subtitles to Video” article. The resulting SRT file should allow the player to play all the subtitles together automatically at the bottom of the video with optional different colors.
Additional Note:SMPlayer is a frontend GUI for the command line MPlayer which is the engine behind a number of media players. Although it claims to have the ability to play two subtitles at once we were unable to get the second subtitle to work. It should also be possible with the ffdshow video codec to display two subtitles although it can be tricky to setup for all but experienced users. Another way is using the Greenfish subtitle player to show a secondary subtitle in a separate window.
You might also like:
3 Ways to Add Two or More Subtitles to Video4 Ways To Add and Burn Subtitles to AVI Permanently6 Ways to Play Downloaded RAR Video Files Without Unpacking5 Free Standalone Subtitle Players5 Tools to Determine the Codecs Required To Play Downloaded Movies
42 Comments - Write a Comment
bob3 months ago
who is here to learn new language
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KMPlayer DOES THAT NO MORE, so don’t bother downloading it. It doesn’t show multiple subtitles anymore (which is so dumb!).
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Sebastian Linnemann11 months ago
WONDERFUL! Thank you!!!
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thank you very much
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Paloma2 years ago
Thank you very much for this post but specially thank you Graham in the comments for recommending IINA to Mac users.
IINA works fine on Mac. Very, very fine. I only miss the ability of picking the 2 subtitles with just key shortcuts or just dragging both. This aspect could improve but the basics are perfect.
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Thanks it works, thanks a lot
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Graham3 years ago
IINA (on the Mac) supports second subtitles. Very useful for certain groups of viewers.
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Thank you very much. your way and explanation is very clear and works very easy and fast.
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Pedro4 years ago
PotPlayer is really the best :) classic, no ads, intuitive KM has ads and takes long to set up right. BS was crashing after a few minutes and doesn’t have full fullscreen bar (hate short bars) only advantage is having the 2nd subtitles yellow which is nice but maybe it is possible to set in PotPlayer too, it has lotsa settings, I just a few so far, mainly keyboard and mouse shortcuts I was used to Media Player Classic but this option just did not showed to me, they failed to make adding 2nd subs so difficult.
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To make it work in smplayer: – install mpv – In smplayer’s Preferences, General tab, the first item configures the player binary. Make sure this is mpv and not mplayer
Profit!
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loraine3 years ago
Thanks a lot, works like a charm.
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Hi, I just want to use “Media Player Classic – Home Cinema” to open two subtitles. I followed the instructions but for me under “filters” there is no “VSFilter” option. How can I fix this problem?
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hassan4 years ago
The same problem . This option is not found
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The option will only appear if you have placed the subtitle file in the same folder as the video file.
Reply
Vlc Media Player Reviews 2019
Jonas3 years ago
I guess they’re talking about the “advanced” options.
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Thanks. I hadn’t heard of PotPlayer until now and I’d used many media players. I think it’s the best. Every feature imaginable, great keyboard shortcuts, no advertising, no cost. Amazing.
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Dennis G Daniels5 years ago
re:SMPlayer “Although it claims to have the ability to play two subtitles at once we were unable to get the second subtitle to work. ” I too was not able to get it to work :(
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I have just recently created an online tool to directly grab two subtitles by just selecting your movie name. The tool works by first downloading the best first language subtitle, and then uses machine translation for the second subtitle, and then directly adds the second subtitle at the bottom. All this is done on doublesub.owyong.sk and no software install required!
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Yoma Ma4 years ago
The problem with machine translation is that it is not intuitive enough to catch the play on words of each language, which is what makes for great one-liner jokes (See also, Arnold movies), nor does it pick up on sayings or double meanings. One truly misses out when using machine translations.
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Your site is brilliant. I just used it to translate from German to English and the translation seems to good to be automatic. If it really uses automatic translation, I wish I could upload my own subtitles and translate them (currently it forces me to browse for the movie in my pc, what if I don’t have the movie, or the movie is made by me and there is no subtitle on the internet?). Anyway, great job, I love it, thanks!
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anonymous5 years ago
Another website for merging subs submerge.ovh I didn’t know dualsubtitles.com but it looks similar.
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You can also use DualSub (dualsub.sourceforge.net), which is an open source tool to merge SRT subtitles. It can be customized for different players features. In addition it allows to translate subtitles if you only have one input subtitle file.
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Alexis5 years ago
On other website for dual subtitles : dualsubtitles.com The advantage for this service, if we compare with DualSub, it’s the fact that the subtitles are show on the top for the first language, and at the bottom for the second language. DualSub show the language near each other, and it’s very uncomfortable and difficult to read. dualsubtitles.com is also compatible with Kodi (XMBC).
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DualSub 1.1 supports this way of merging horizontally, and also allows to specify different colors for the two subtitles sets: bonigarcia.github.io/dualsub/
Reply
srinivas V M10 years ago
Hello,
Thanks a ton for the Post , Really appreciate it , This is going to help to quickly learn the foreign language ( German).
Again, Thanking you So Much
Regards Srinivas
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I’m Hungarian, and practice English. I’ve looked for it for a long time. Many thanks!!
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vahid10 years ago
thanks a lot ray.
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thanks! My girlfriend is Hungarian and I’m dutch and we also had this problem. I can understand English, which is not a problem for Hollywood movies, but we also like cult movies in foreign languages (problematic with 1 subtitle).
Thanks, i need this one. Wow, 1,500++ responses yesterday.
Reply
Natella12 years ago
Great tip, as always on this blog. Thanks!
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Thanks Ray :) finally a solution to some of my own download movies… You Rock !
Iina Player
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Rizea Narcis12 years ago
Iina Vs Vlc Media Player
Ray, nothing more to say than “you’re the best” in the domain of all this technical stuff
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This is very helpful, thanks raymond Fluid 2 1 download free.
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Michal12 years ago
Thanks, i didn’t know about it, i’ll try this! Interesting tip!
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Thanks for letting us in on this useful software Raymond. I will definitely give this a try Ray.
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Michal12 years ago
Thanks Ray i didn’t known about that, i’ll try this! It seems to be very useful!
Reply
thanks raymond good tip
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Nowadays, there are various players for playback. Two of the most popular players are VLC Player and QuickTime Player. Let’s see the features and differences between the two players.
VLC Media Player
IPhone SE, 'The most powerful 4-inch phone ever created', according to the glowing words of Tim Cook, was unveiled on Monday, March 21. Under the big spotlight of Apple's latest product launch event, there comes up a small iPhone unsurprisingly. Compared to iPhone 6 and 6plus series, iPhone SE is more pocket -friendly, retaining the body design of the 5S. Also, it uses nearly the same hardware inside as the current year’s iPhone 6s.Thus, its speed will be guaranteed. This isn’t just a phone for people looking to save money. Speaking of money, the starting price of iPhone SE is $399 — where no iPhone has gone before.
Key words: small, speedy, cheap
QuickTime Player
QuickTime Player is an extensible multimedia framework developed by Apple Inc. It is now available free of charge for both OS X and Windows operating systems. The main function is similar to VLC Media Player including handling various formats of digital video, picture, sound, panoramic images, and interactivity. The following are the main features.
Fully supports Mac OS X;
Encodes and transcodes video and audio from one format to another;
Saves existing QuickTime movies from the web directly to a hard disk drive;
Saves the embedded video in its original format or in a *.mov file format no matter what the original container is/was.
Difference Between VLC Media Player and QuickTime Player
For Mac users, QuickTime Player is the first choice since it is bundled with Mac OS X. For windows users, it’s better to choose VLC Media Player. The main difference between the two players is about iTunes movies. QuickTime Player can play iTunes M4V movies while VLC Media Player can’t play M4V movies directly.
iTunes M4V movies have DRM protection and can’t be played on non-Apple devices including VLC Media Player. What if you would like to enjoy iTunes movies on VLC Media Player? Don’t worry, NoteBurner M4V Converter Plus can help you. As a powerful DRM removal tool, it can record iTunes rentals and purchases. After removing iTunes DRM, you can convert the movies to different formats like MP4, MOV, AVI, etc. Now, let’s learn how to use NoteBurner M4V Converter Plus to enjoy iTunes movies on VLC Media Player.
At first, you can download and install NoteBurner M4V Converter Plus on your Windows or Mac.
Guide on How to Use NoteBurner M4V Converter Plus to Enjoy iTunes Movies on VLC Media Player
Step 1 Add iTunes movies
Launch NoteBurner M4V Converter Plus, click 'Add Movies' button on the top-left or in the center, there will be a list of your iTunes purchased or rented movies. Choose the movies you need and then click 'OK'. Batch conversion is supported.
Step 2 Choose output format
Go to the dropdown list next to 'Lossless MP4', you can choose 'Lossless MP4' since it is accepted by VLC Media Player. You can also manually set the parameters like Codec, Bitrate, Size and Scale by clicking the Settings icon.
Step 3 Start conversion
Click 'Convert' button on the bottom-right. During the conversion, please make sure you are not clicking on the button to control iTunes.
After conversion, you can find the converted iTunes movies in the output folder and add them to VLC Media Player. Then there's no restrictions and you can enjoy iTunes movies on VLC Media Player freely.
YouTube Tutorial:
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