I've got Totem (xine backend), VLC and Mplayer installed on my desktop and mostly I use Totem. If it could open ISOs and handle DVDs with menus in the same way as VLC I'd probably never use anything else. Mplayer's there mostly because it's a dependency of ripping/encoding tools I use. It's a decent enough player but has some strange issues like if I resize the playback window the aspect ratio isn't retained and it also struggles with some DVD menus. VLC I guess is the most complete player but I need/want something that shows me some simple controls in fullscreen with a movement of the mouse, not with a click. I'll vote for Totem-xine as it's the one I use the most and I've found it available on every (HDD installable)distro I tried. I'd like VLC more if it wasn't such a complete b!t*h to compile for those distros that don't have a working/recent version in their repos. If i could only have one media player to do everything audio and video I guess it would be VLC, but I have the luxury of choice so Totem.

We are in the XXI century guys. Stop the madness of xine vs mplayer. Howeva I need the best video player/producer/live audio-video FX not a GUI. Mplayer yeah!

If you want playlists: mplayer Videos/[Mo-ve-On]*

If you want to squeeze a lot from mplayer RTFM. ;)

If it's not working: it is time to pay attention to xorg.conf...

I chose vlc because it can play pretty much whatever you throw at it, and I've used it a lot in Windows and Linux. mplayer would be my second choice. It is a little more difficult to install, but the browser plugins are great.

However, I watch most videos outside of my browser so I am sticking with vlc.

I always end up at VLC and that is also for audio!

VLC definitely, I like for the fact it's lightweight and it installs everything out of the box, everything except RM, MOV and WMV

mplayer
 

mplayer best hai sabkeliye

VLC is my choice of application.

Totem. Used it once or twice, don't watch too much video on my PC

mplayer opens and plays everything. it's great. but i've been using kaffeine alot this year. it plays most of what i need and it's good for dvds. it supports menus. mplayers not so good for dvd's. have to specify title/chapter, no menu support.
so,... i love mplayer. but i voted kaffeine.

SMPlayer rocks, and I don't understund why isn't there!?

i'm headed there now. have installed gui several times, but never worked. thanks for the tip.

mplayer anyway

For me mplayer and VLC is such a tight race. Mplayer simply has the features and the ability to play pretty much everything that you throw at it, no matter how bad the condition of the source is... I never figured out how to correct the audio syncing in vlc. Now that mplayer has a drag-and-drop playlist It has replaced VLC. But I think both are absolutely awesome.

kaffeine
 

kaffeine seems to play more videos from the web for me. depends on whether i'm on suse or ubuntu though. Plays dvds on my laptop. what more could you want?

mplayer working gr8,but sometimes bugs arising,some fatal errors,like mplayer interuupted by signal1 module,mplayer crash like this..