How do I get the videos to play on my Windows computer?
Quick Fix
Without getting into any details or any kind of troubleshooting, the following suggestions will likely solve your problem pretty quickly:
- Install the CCCP codec pack
To play video, you need to have the proper software installed (called “codecs”). There are various codecs and codec packs that can do this, but only the CCCP will work with virtually any (English) anime fansub. Before you install this, please uninstall any other codecs or codec packs you may have already installed by going to
Start -> Settings -> Control Panel -> Add or Remove Programs - Only use the recommended players to view anime
Software like Windows Media Player (WMP), BSPlayer and VLC are popular video players among anime fans, but unfortunately they don’t actually play all files properly! To avoid playback issues (especially with newer formats like MKV or MP4) please be sure to use the players included with CCCP: that is Media Player Classic (MPC) or ZoomPlayer! - Be sure the video downloaded completely
It may seem obvious, but video players will have trouble with incomplete or incorrectly downloaded files. Try redownloading or resuming the file in your download client to make absolutely certain the file was completely and correctly download. Our files are all zipped into ZIP format, so if you have difficulty unzipping the files, the video might be incomplete.
What’s this file? How do I play it?
Most of you are familiar with video files in AVI format. But recently various other kinds of video files have become popular with fansub groups, such as:
- .MKV
- .MP4
- XviD
- h264
- AAC
- Vorbis
- …and more…
The simple solution to playing all of these is to install CCCP.
A special note on the MP4 format: as at the time of writing QuickTime’s implementation of the MP4 format (and required codecs) is a little outdated, it’s not recommended to use QuickTime to play MP4 files! Use CCCP and the included video players instead.
A word about VLC
VLC (VideoLan Player) is a nice video player which is popular because you don’t need to install any extra codecs. However you should be aware that:
- VLC does not use external codecs
This means for example that installing the CCCP will not improve VLC playback in any way! If VLC fails to play a file properly, install the CCCP and use the players included with it (MPC or ZoomPlayer). - VLC has extremely poor support for soft-subtitles
Soft-subtitles are subtitles that are not encoded into the video. There are various groups which prefer to use these “soft” subtitles in their fansubs. Such fansubs are usually in MKV format (though not all MKV files use soft-subtitles).VLC’s support for soft-subtitles is nearly non-existant: you’re lucky if you get them to display, but the result isn’t pretty. Please use CCCP and it’s included players to play fansubs with soft-subtitles! (or mplayer on Mac OS X or Linux)
How do I get the videos to play on my Mac?
VLC can play almost any file you throw at it. VLC is best for playing .avi and .mp4 files. VLC isn’t very good with soft subbed files (most often these are .mkv files, but not always). While VLC can display softsubs, it has the annoying problem of overlapping simultaneous subtitles (such as when one character is talking in the background and one is talking in the foreground). Instead of putting one on top of the other, both are displayed at the same spot on the screen. If you still want to watch a softsubbed file with VLC in order to enable subtitles you have to select the subtitle track from the video menu while the file is playing. But I would suggest using Mplayer for soft sub files.
MPlayer is a pretty good player for sob sub files. But if you are using OS 10.4.x, you need to install X11, available on your OS X Tiger install disc or here. Make sure to download the 1.1.3 update available from software update or here.
For those of you running Mac OS X Leopard (OS 10.5) X11 is not necessary.
Now that you’ve installed X11 you can go ahead and install MPlayer. After installation, open preferences under font select a true type font (I selected Gulim, to figure out what fonts you have that are truetype open fonts in your system library and look for fonts with the extension .ttf) Next select ISO-8859-1 for default encoding. If your computer is a couple of years old I would also enable “drop frames on slower machines” under Video and Audio. Now you are ready to play files.
To watch a .mkv file with softsubs do the following: press the “v” key to enable or disable subtitles during playback. Press the “j” key to cycle subtitles language. Press the “#” key to cycle audio language. Next press “b” to select the proper subtitle file. Command/Apple F or just F (depending on what version of Mplayer you have) enables full screen viewing.
WARNING! Don’t use the version of Mplayer (also called MPlayerOSX2) from Sourceforge! That is an old broken version that is no longer being updated as far as I can tell. Avoid it like the plague.
Quicktime: If you would prefer to use Quicktime player you can use the Perian Quicktime Component which adds support for .mkv’s and softsubs. It is available here: http://perian.org/ Perian is for OS 10.4 only.