I've just started using VLC media player to play back some HDTV (720p x 1080) downloads since my usual player, Media Player Classic doesn't handle them very well, producing choppy video and audio. This seems to be a CPU power problem (AMD 2500+ overclocked to 2.35GHz) and VLC works OK.

The files have subtitles in a .mkv container and after I switch them on they display OK. Unfortunately they're in a fixed solid white colour that doesn't show up well on the screen, bleding into white backgrounds. Subtitle fonts in MPC and such tend to have thin dark outlines around the text to make them stand out. Is there any way to get VLC media player to render this kind of font? I tried reading the HOWTOs on the videolan Webpages but they weren't much help. There are some settings for subtitle text and colour changes under the preferences menu but after I set them nothing happens even after I restart the program. The font choice section doesn't seem to work at all. When I try and select a font clicking in the file listing box doesn't do anything and I have to cancel.

On another matter for some reason every time VLC starts up the sound is at maximum. Is there any way of seting a lower default volume level? I'd also like to set "Subtitles on" as a startup default too, if that's possible.

Running W2KPro, 1GHz RAM, Matrox G400TV video card.