the srt file contains any special sign like italic font or lines like this "-"?
some video players won't work with that, if the file is not srt, this could be part of the problem, maybe you could convert the subtitle with the help of subtitle editor or other similar apps in synaptic
in totem, the 200 output doesn't exist afik(totem is not the most popular app), only kmix with the audio levels, be sure to set the master and pcm levels to maximum
other option to play the videos could be xine and gxine gui, also mplayer, smplayer is a gui for mplayer
about vlc, are you using 1.1 or 2.0 version?