Can't get .mkv subtitles to display/work properly

[ChronoSquare]

It seems that the mid series of Tengen Toppa Gurren Lagann is only available in .mkv files now; while this is good that I can find them to direct download them, it is not good because I cannot get their subtitles to display correctly, or sometimes not even at all.

I've tried VLC; either it displays horribly huge and ugly text that ends up wrapping in on itself when displaying anything in one line longer than "Tengen Toppa Gurren Lagann" and makes it unreadable - adjusting the subtitles doesn't alter it at all; either the size is its normal ugly huge size or if it's turned down too small (so as to override its default settings) it doesn't display at all. (Episode 15 doesn't display period - even when turned on to normal display options.)

After asking a friend in a chat room, he suggested I try MPC; (The Navigation right-click menu is grayed out for me, and the link I was given to a similar thread in here (that's how I found this place) didnt' help me solve its problem) - I couldn't figure out how to turn on subtitles in MPC.

The only other one I have that could play the file (as far as I know windows media player doesn't support .mkv and all those other media file types) was DivX, but even there I could not figure out how to turn on the subtitles feature - though I turned on to accept external subtitles in the preferences menu and told it to use english subtitles (going on memory since I need to use another computer to access the internet) but still no subtitles displayed, and the right-click subtitles option in DivX was greyed out.

Can anyone help me out here? I really like this anime, and would love to take it to show at anime club... but I don't want to go and show it without being able to deliver all (currently 27) episodes. I hope that something can be done...
*prepares for a long wait before someone responds*

[Placio74]

Ehm... You try with installed Haali Media Splitter...?

You try The KMPlayer or SMPlayer?

[Ai Haibara]

In MPC, pick Options from the View menu, then click on the Output sub-entry under Playback. You'll need to have video output options selected that have the ** next to them in order to be able to work with subtitles in a video.

Also, you probably should indeed have Haali Media Splitter installed. Maybe Vobsub/Direct Vobsub, if that doesn't work (or try enabling subtitle support in ffdshow as well, if it's installed).

[ChronoSquare]

Oh, thank you Placio! The KMPlayer seems to handle these files just fine (shame the audio doesn't play with the first 12 .rmvb file episodes; nothing to worry about.)

Ai Haibara, your suggestion did work - I could now get the navigate menu in MPC, but even with it on the subtitles did not display in MPC... not even with the Haali Media Splitter or the Vobsub installed; perhaps I did not install them/active them correctly or something? Regardless, I should be able to get by with the KMPlayer for now...