Comment 18 for bug 395476

I have the same problem.
Since Totem gets stuck when opening video with external subtitles I had to do in a different way.
This might be useful for everyone who wants to use an alternative player to Totem.
In this example I used VLC but every player would do.

1) Set the correct HUE value in nvidia-settings and close the panel
2) Create a custom nautilus script like this in $HOME/.gnome2/nautilus-scripts/ :
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elisiano@thunder:~$ cat ~/.gnome2/nautilus-scripts/VLCWrapper
#!/bin/bash
/usr/bin/vlc --sub-autodetect-file --fullscreen $1 &
sleep 0.5
/usr/bin/nvidia-settings -l
-----------------------

3) set the script as executable ( chmod +x ~/.gnome2/nautilus-scripts/VLCWrapper )

Done.
Now every time you right click a file in the Scripts menu you will find an entry with your newly created script.
Of course you can choose whichever player you prefer instead of vlc.