VLC can use libass also for subtitles. I don't believe this is the default way it's shipped in most linux distros however. Once it's added in and the plugin i

VLC can use libass also for subtitles. I don't believe this is the default way it's shipped in most linux distros however. Once it's added in and the plugin is enabled however It does do it just as well as mplayer. This is one of the reasons that I like gentoo on my desktop. It makes getting some of these things nearly trivial once setup.