[Zerosum]

I was having difficulties getting downloaded Chinese subtitles to display
properly in avi files. I finally managed to solve that problem using
BSPlayer, all the other apps I tried just gave me gibberish.

But that's not what I'm asking for help with here. There's something I don't
understand. I downloaded the Chinese subtitles from a Chinese website. The
subtitle filetype is srt. However, when I open the subtitle file in Notepad,
all I see are nonsense characters that look like this: ÕâÊÇÄãÃÇÄܼ¯º�µÄ°®ºÃ

But when I open the same srt subtitle file in Word, I get a File Conversion
options window asking me to choose one of the following:

1 Windows (Default) 2 MS-DOS 3 Other encoding (choose
Chinese Simplified (GB2312))

Choosing the 'Other encoding' option properly displays the Chinese characters

My question: why don't the Chinese characters display properly when I open
the srt file in Notepad? Why does Word have to 'convert' the file for the
Chinese characters to display propery? When the file is open in Notepad, even
changing the default font to a Chinese Font doesn't help - the characters
then display as square boxes.

My XP system-default language is English, but I have system-wide language
support enabled for both traditional and simplified Chinese in the Regional
and Language Options section of the WindowsXP Control Panel, and I have never
had any problems viewing or typing Chinese into Word, Notepad, or my browser.
XP will allow me to give files Chinese names. I have installed additional
simplified and traditional Chinese fonts in the Fonts folder.

If I copy Chinese text from the web, I can paste it into a .txt file and
save it. So what is it about these Chinese srt files that they will not
display properly when opened in Notepad? I assume these subtitle files were
originally created by someone who had Chinese as the default OS language on
his computer; and when I open these files in Notepad on a Chinese firiend's
computer who has Chinese as the default system language, the files correctly
display in Chinese, so why not on my computer?

Please note that I am not trying to 'fix' Notepad, I merely wish to
understand why the file won't display properly, as I think this is the key to
solving other related problems.

Thanks