diff --git a/source/net/filebot/cli/ArgumentProcessor.java b/source/net/filebot/cli/ArgumentProcessor.java
index b9f09eee..bb255edf 100644
--- a/source/net/filebot/cli/ArgumentProcessor.java
+++ b/source/net/filebot/cli/ArgumentProcessor.java
@@ -6,10 +6,8 @@ import static net.filebot.util.ExceptionUtilities.*;
 import static net.filebot.util.FileUtilities.*;
 
 import java.io.File;
-import java.io.FileInputStream;
 import java.io.FileNotFoundException;
 import java.io.IOException;
-import java.io.InputStreamReader;
 import java.net.URI;
 import java.net.URL;
 import java.nio.ByteBuffer;
@@ -188,7 +186,7 @@ public class ArgumentProcessor {
 		@Override
 		public String fetchScript(URI uri) throws IOException {
 			if (uri.getScheme().equals("file")) {
-				return readAll(new InputStreamReader(new FileInputStream(new File(uri)), "UTF-8"));
+				return readTextFile(new File(uri));
 			}
 
 			if (uri.getScheme().equals("g")) {
diff --git a/source/net/filebot/cli/BindingsHandler.java b/source/net/filebot/cli/BindingsHandler.java
index 9cc72a31..cd665ebf 100644
--- a/source/net/filebot/cli/BindingsHandler.java
+++ b/source/net/filebot/cli/BindingsHandler.java
@@ -1,5 +1,9 @@
 package net.filebot.cli;
 
+import static net.filebot.util.FileUtilities.*;
+
+import java.io.File;
+import java.io.IOException;
 import java.util.LinkedHashMap;
 import java.util.Map;
 
@@ -33,29 +37,48 @@ public class BindingsHandler extends MapOptionHandler {
 
 		int pos = 0;
 		while (pos < params.size()) {
-			String[] nv = params.getParameter(pos).split("=", 2);
-
-			if (nv.length < 2 || nv[0].startsWith("-")) {
+			if (params.getParameter(pos).startsWith("-")) {
 				return pos;
 			}
 
-			String n = nv[0].trim();
-			String v = nv[1].trim();
-
-			if (!isIdentifier(n)) {
-				throw new CmdLineException(owner, String.format("\"%s\" is not a valid identifier", n));
+			String[] nv = params.getParameter(pos).split("=", 2);
+			if (nv.length < 2) {
+				return pos;
 			}
 
-			map.put(n, v);
+			String n = getIdentifier(nv[0].trim());
+			String v = getValue(nv[1].trim());
+
+			addToMap(map, n, v);
 			pos++;
 		}
 
 		return pos;
 	}
 
+	public String getIdentifier(String n) throws CmdLineException {
+		if (!isIdentifier(n)) {
+			throw new CmdLineException(owner, "\"" + n + "\" is not a valid identifier", null);
+		}
+		return n;
+	}
+
+	public String getValue(String v) throws CmdLineException {
+		if (v.startsWith("@")) {
+			File f = new File(v.substring(1));
+			try {
+				return readTextFile(f).trim();
+			} catch (IOException e) {
+				throw new CmdLineException(owner, "\"" + f + "\" is not a text file", e);
+			}
+		}
+		return v;
+	}
+
 	public boolean isIdentifier(String n) {
-		if (n.isEmpty())
+		if (n == null || n.isEmpty()) {
 			return false;
+		}
 
 		for (int i = 0; i < n.length();) {
 			int c = n.codePointAt(i);
@@ -76,7 +99,7 @@ public class BindingsHandler extends MapOptionHandler {
 
 	@Override
 	protected Map createNewCollection(Class<? extends Map> type) {
-		return new LinkedHashMap();
+		return new LinkedHashMap(); // make sure to preserve order of arguments
 	}
 
 }
diff --git a/source/net/filebot/subtitle/SubtitleUtilities.java b/source/net/filebot/subtitle/SubtitleUtilities.java
index 8425c1ec..b208b02e 100644
--- a/source/net/filebot/subtitle/SubtitleUtilities.java
+++ b/source/net/filebot/subtitle/SubtitleUtilities.java
@@ -13,6 +13,7 @@ import java.io.Reader;
 import java.nio.ByteBuffer;
 import java.nio.CharBuffer;
 import java.nio.charset.Charset;
+import java.nio.charset.StandardCharsets;
 import java.util.ArrayList;
 import java.util.Collection;
 import java.util.HashMap;
@@ -271,7 +272,7 @@ public final class SubtitleUtilities {
 		}
 
 		// decode bytes and beware of byte-order marks
-		Reader reader = new UnicodeReader(new ByteBufferInputStream(file.getData()));
+		Reader reader = new UnicodeReader(new ByteBufferInputStream(file.getData()), true, StandardCharsets.UTF_8);
 
 		// decode subtitle file with the first reader that seems to work
 		for (SubtitleFormat format : likelyFormats) {
diff --git a/source/net/filebot/util/FileUtilities.java b/source/net/filebot/util/FileUtilities.java
index 3321c749..14604018 100644
--- a/source/net/filebot/util/FileUtilities.java
+++ b/source/net/filebot/util/FileUtilities.java
@@ -198,16 +198,18 @@ public final class FileUtilities {
 		}
 	}
 
-	public static String readAll(Reader source) throws IOException {
-		StringBuilder text = new StringBuilder();
-		char[] buffer = new char[2048];
+	public static String readTextFile(File file) throws IOException {
+		try (Reader reader = new UnicodeReader(new BufferedInputStream(new FileInputStream(file), BUFFER_SIZE), false, StandardCharsets.UTF_8)) {
+			StringBuilder text = new StringBuilder();
+			char[] buffer = new char[BUFFER_SIZE];
 
-		int read = 0;
-		while ((read = source.read(buffer)) >= 0) {
-			text.append(buffer, 0, read);
+			int read = 0;
+			while ((read = reader.read(buffer)) >= 0) {
+				text.append(buffer, 0, read);
+			}
+
+			return text.toString();
 		}
-
-		return text.toString();
 	}
 
 	public static File writeFile(ByteBuffer data, File destination) throws IOException {
@@ -239,7 +241,7 @@ public final class FileUtilities {
 			return charset.getReader();
 
 		// assume UTF-8 by default
-		return new InputStreamReader(new FileInputStream(file), "UTF-8");
+		return new InputStreamReader(new FileInputStream(file), StandardCharsets.UTF_8);
 	}
 
 	public static String getText(ByteBuffer data) throws IOException {
diff --git a/source/net/filebot/util/UnicodeReader.java b/source/net/filebot/util/UnicodeReader.java
index efce7a07..213e6c7d 100644
--- a/source/net/filebot/util/UnicodeReader.java
+++ b/source/net/filebot/util/UnicodeReader.java
@@ -16,9 +16,10 @@ public class UnicodeReader extends Reader {
 
 	private final Reader reader;
 
-	public UnicodeReader(InputStream stream) throws IOException {
-		if (!stream.markSupported())
+	public UnicodeReader(InputStream stream, boolean guessCharset, Charset defaultCharset) throws IOException {
+		if (!stream.markSupported()) {
 			throw new IllegalArgumentException("stream must support mark");
+		}
 
 		stream.mark(BOM_SIZE);
 		byte bom[] = new byte[BOM_SIZE];
@@ -49,12 +50,15 @@ public class UnicodeReader extends Reader {
 		stream.skip(skip);
 
 		// guess character encoding if necessary
-		if (bomEncoding == null) {
-			// auto-detect encoding
-			reader = new CharsetDetector().getReader(stream, "UTF-8");
-		} else {
+		if (bomEncoding != null) {
 			// initialize reader via BOM
 			reader = new InputStreamReader(stream, bomEncoding);
+		} else if (bomEncoding == null && guessCharset) {
+			// auto-detect encoding
+			reader = new CharsetDetector().getReader(stream, defaultCharset.name());
+		} else {
+			// use default
+			reader = new InputStreamReader(stream, defaultCharset);
 		}
 	}