diff --git a/CONTRIBUTORS b/CONTRIBUTORS
index f6cf706a..082723dd 100644
--- a/CONTRIBUTORS
+++ b/CONTRIBUTORS
@@ -2812,3 +2812,5 @@ Dominic Evans <oldmanuk@gmail.com>
 Torsten Lang <info@torstenlang.de>
  for reporting a problem with newline characters in stream component descriptions
  of EPG data from BSkyB's "MTV MUSIC"
+ for suggesting to make BIDI support check at runtime whether the system runs with
+ UTF-8
diff --git a/HISTORY b/HISTORY
index c16f761c..95ab357b 100644
--- a/HISTORY
+++ b/HISTORY
@@ -6781,7 +6781,7 @@ Video Disk Recorder Revision History
 - Replaced all calls to sleep() with cCondWait::SleepMs() (thanks to Rolf Ahrenberg).
 - Fixed a crash with malformed SI data (patch from vdr-portal).
 
-2012-01-11: Version 1.7.23
+2012-01-12: Version 1.7.23
 
 - Removed the '.pl' suffix from svdrpsend.pl (sorry, I missed that one).
 - Fixed bonding more than two devices.
@@ -6818,3 +6818,5 @@ Video Disk Recorder Revision History
   TS packets, e.g. when switching channels.
 - Fixed the SVDRP command CLRE for a single channel in case there are events
   that have a timer (thanks to Timo Eskola).
+- BIDI support now checks at runtime whether the system runs with UTF-8 (suggested
+  by Torsten Lang).
diff --git a/font.c b/font.c
index 16d1013c..b3913451 100644
--- a/font.c
+++ b/font.c
@@ -6,7 +6,7 @@
  *
  * BiDi support by Osama Alrawab <alrawab@hotmail.com> @2008 Tripoli-Libya.
  *
- * $Id: font.c 2.8 2011/03/28 16:29:51 kls Exp $
+ * $Id: font.c 2.9 2012/01/13 09:43:22 kls Exp $
  */
 
 #include "font.h"
@@ -508,25 +508,27 @@ cString cFont::GetFontFileName(const char *FontName)
 #ifdef BIDI
 cString cFont::Bidi(const char *Ltr)
 {
-  fribidi_set_mirroring(true);
-  fribidi_set_reorder_nsm(false);
-  FriBidiCharSet fribidiCharset = FRIBIDI_CHAR_SET_UTF8;
-  int LtrLen = strlen(Ltr);
-  FriBidiCharType Base = FRIBIDI_TYPE_L;
-  FriBidiChar *Logical = MALLOC(FriBidiChar, LtrLen + 1) ;
-  int RtlLen = fribidi_charset_to_unicode(fribidiCharset, const_cast<char *>(Ltr), LtrLen, Logical);
-  FriBidiChar *Visual = MALLOC(FriBidiChar, LtrLen + 1) ;
-  char *Rtl = NULL;
-  bool ok = fribidi_log2vis(Logical, RtlLen, &Base, Visual, NULL, NULL, NULL);
-  if (ok) {
-     fribidi_remove_bidi_marks(Visual, RtlLen, NULL, NULL, NULL);
-     Rtl = MALLOC(char, RtlLen * 4 + 1);
-     fribidi_unicode_to_charset(fribidiCharset, Visual, RtlLen, Rtl);
+  if (cCharSetConv::SystemCharacterTable()) { // bidi requires UTF-8
+     fribidi_set_mirroring(true);
+     fribidi_set_reorder_nsm(false);
+     FriBidiCharSet fribidiCharset = FRIBIDI_CHAR_SET_UTF8;
+     int LtrLen = strlen(Ltr);
+     FriBidiCharType Base = FRIBIDI_TYPE_L;
+     FriBidiChar *Logical = MALLOC(FriBidiChar, LtrLen + 1) ;
+     int RtlLen = fribidi_charset_to_unicode(fribidiCharset, const_cast<char *>(Ltr), LtrLen, Logical);
+     FriBidiChar *Visual = MALLOC(FriBidiChar, LtrLen + 1) ;
+     char *Rtl = NULL;
+     bool ok = fribidi_log2vis(Logical, RtlLen, &Base, Visual, NULL, NULL, NULL);
+     if (ok) {
+        fribidi_remove_bidi_marks(Visual, RtlLen, NULL, NULL, NULL);
+        Rtl = MALLOC(char, RtlLen * 4 + 1);
+        fribidi_unicode_to_charset(fribidiCharset, Visual, RtlLen, Rtl);
+        }
+     free(Logical);
+     free(Visual);
+     if (ok)
+        return cString(Rtl, true);
      }
-  free(Logical);
-  free(Visual);
-  if (ok)
-     return cString(Rtl, true);
   return cString(Ltr);
 }
 #endif