How to change subtitle color and style in MPV on Windows

Did you know that if you’re using MPV then you can configure almost anything about your subtitle display? I recently bought an OLED TV and I definitely do love the deeper black colors, but one inconvenience that I faced were the subtitles that are way too bright when watching TV in the evening at a high contrast. I fixed it by adjusting the subtitle color, I changed it from pure white to an off-shade grey and it has been a much more pleasant viewing experience. If you’re a font connoisseur then you can adjust the font to your liking as well.

How to configure MPV on Windows

On windows MPV stores a configuration file at C:\Users\User\AppData\Roaming\mpv you can quickly access this directory by pressing CTRL + R and typing in %appdata%/mpv. It is possible that this directory will not contain an MPV configuration file if you haven’t configured MPV in the past. In that case just go ahead and create a mpv.conf file. You can edit it by opening it in the notepad or just right clicking on it and selecting “Edit in Notepad”.

Then you can add this configuration:

sub-color='#FFFFFF'
sub-shadow-color='#000000'
sub-font='Roboto'
sub-bold=yes
sub-font-size=45
sub-pos=100

Screenshots from MPV

In my case I went from this, albeit sensible, default:

To this custom configuration which I like a lot more:

You can even go above and beyond and make the subtitles match your movie thematically:

Here are a couple more possible configuration options:

sub-color='#4a77ff'
sub-shadow-color='#dbe4ff'
sub-font='ROGFonts-Regular'
sub-italic=no
sub-bold=no
sub-blur=10
sub-back-color=`#FFFFFF`
sub-outline-color=1.0,1.0,1.0
sub-outline-size=1.5
sub-border-style`outline-and-shadow`
sub-align-x=left
sub-font-size=45

And you can follow this link for all MPV possible font configuration options and general documentation if you feel like fiddling more extensively.

Enjoy your TV time!