I am trying to get video output with mplayer on a 64 bit hp laptop running the radeonhd driver. I feel in need of a little config magic. It throws up a square box in the middle of the 1200x800 screen. My config file simply says:

xy-3:2
utf8=yes

dec@harriet:$ mplayer dvd://2 - The video bit says
MPEG-PS file format detected.
VIDEO: MPEG2 720x576 (aspect 3) 25.000 fps 9800.0 kbps (1225.0 kbyte/s)
[VO_XV] It seems there is no Xvideo support for your video card available.
[VO_XV] Run 'xvinfo' to verify its Xv support and read
[VO_XV] DOCS/HTML/en/video.html#xv!
[VO_XV] See 'mplayer -vo help' for other (non-xv) video out drivers.
[VO_XV] Try -vo x11.
Opening video filter: [spp]
==========================================================================
Opening video decoder: [mpegpes] MPEG 1/2 Video passthrough
VDec: vo config request - 720 x 576 (preferred colorspace: Mpeg PES)
[PP] Using external postprocessing filter, max q = 6.
Could not find matching colorspace - retrying with -vf scale...
Opening video filter: [scale]
The selected video_out device is incompatible with this codec.
Try appending the scale filter to your filter list,
e.g. -vf spp,scale instead of -vf spp.
VDecoder init failed
Opening video decoder: [ffmpeg] FFmpeg's libavcodec codec family
Unsupported PixelFormat -1
Selected video codec: [ffmpeg2] vfm: ffmpeg (FFmpeg MPEG-2)


So I tried the suggestions:
bash-3.1$ xvinfo
X-Video Extension version 2.2
screen #0
no adaptors present

dec@harriet:$ mplayer -vo x11 dvd://2

MPEG-PS file format detected.
VIDEO: MPEG2 720x576 (aspect 3) 25.000 fps 9800.0 kbps (1225.0 kbyte/s)
==========================================================================
Opening video decoder: [mpegpes] MPEG 1/2 Video passthrough
VDec: vo config request - 720 x 576 (preferred colorspace: Mpeg PES)
Could not find matching colorspace - retrying with -vf scale...
Opening video filter: [scale]
The selected video_out device is incompatible with this codec.
Try appending the scale filter to your filter list,
e.g. -vf spp,scale instead of -vf spp.
VDecoder init failed
Opening video decoder: [ffmpeg] FFmpeg's libavcodec codec family
Unsupported PixelFormat -1
Selected video codec: [ffmpeg2] vfm: ffmpeg (FFmpeg MPEG-2)

And later on:
AO: [oss] 48000Hz 2ch s16le (2 bytes per sample)
Starting playback...
VDec: vo config request - 720 x 576 (preferred colorspace: Planar YV12)
VDec: using Planar YV12 as output csp (no 0)
Movie-Aspect is 1.78:1 - prescaling to correct movie aspect.
VO: [x11] 720x576 => 1536x864 Planar YV12
[ASPECT] Warning: No suitable new res found!
[swscaler @ 0xcef960]using unscaled yuv420p -> rgb32 special converter
[mpeg2video @ 0xc3e5c0]ac-tex damaged at 11 7
[mpeg2video @ 0xc3e5c0]Warning MVs not available
[mpeg2video @ 0xc3e5c0]concealing 1305 DC, 1305 AC, 1305 MV errors

mplayer -vf spp, scale also gets laughed at. There is also some conflict because the agp aperature is over 4 gigs and the bios/kernel recreate one at 2 gigs. This is a lousy video combination (ATI card under linux - 'nuff said). Can anyone throw me a bone?

-monitoraspect #.#

1200x800 == 3:2 so 1.5?

You can achieve it by other means too. -vf scale -zoom -x 1066 -y 800 (4:3) or -vf scale -zoom -x 1200 -y 674 (16:9). But it was mainly an xv thing for my ATI drivers, x11 seemed to get it right, but so cpu needy. Basically -monitoraspect 1.5 and let the player do the math. The videos themselves have PAR and DAR. Pixel aspect ratio and Display aspect ratio. But no need to go there if it wasn't something you created.

Yeah, thanks, I tried that. I also tried xy-<many things> It kept setting 720x576 and then it would try to resize and fail. I got around it by using -vo help and tghen trying every single one. GL ran slow but -vo sdl actually worked. I haven't been able to get a dvd menu up but if I can play dvds, it goes on the long finger. Aspect ratio of many films seems to be 1.78:1