I recommend VLC. It comes already supporting 99.9% of all media file formats (well, maybe not exactly 99.9, but the only format I've not been able to play on it is WMP9 format). You won't have to download any new codecs to get it to play what you need, plus it plays CDs and DVDs great too. I've used MPlayer and Xine before, but none of them compare, IMO, to VLC. Plus, VLC is cross-platform, so if you ever have to use a different platform (Windows, Mac, BSD, Pocket PC, etc), you can download the version for that OS, and have a familiar media player.

Wow, I'm pretty stoked to see someone recommending this, I really wish this project would get more support from the community in general, to somehow make it more usable, more understood, more... accepted.

As for it being more usable than mplayer, that's a far cry from being true, but it certainly fills it's niche.

Cool

VLC seems incredibly easy to use to me. By contrast, MPlayer has always felt sluggish and buggy to me. It occasionally drags, and I'm not too impressed with the interface. In fullscreen mode, sometimes the controls show up in the middle of the video, sometimes they don't. I've never had any of these problems wth VLC. I think VLC is the easiest to use video player for Linux that I've used. The interface is incredibly straightforward, just like any other program. Xine and MPlayer try to make themselves feel like you're using a DVD player, or something, but I find the simple interface with VLC much easier to use. Although, I will say that I've never tried to use it's streaming feature, which is definitely one of it's coolest features.

Glad to see you found a player working for you as good as mplayer does for me

Cool