mplayer error opening/initializing what?
 

whenever i try and open any file with mplayer i get this error
Error opening/initializing the selected video_out _-vo) device. i have a feeling i am just doing something stupid but i cant play any of my DVDs or and movie files on my computer and that makes me sad :( any help would be greatly appreciated :D
EDIT: oh and i have been browsing the numerous "omfg mplayer wont work with me" threads but i haven't yet come across a problem like this.

Ok I had lotsa errors when i first started using it and sometimes it wouldnt even work at all so i was screwing around online and found that if you put a g in front of the mplayer so it says gmplayer, it works fine. I dont know what the g is or why it works but it does. try to start it like that and see if that helps.

nevermind i got it working perfectly. i just had to change the VIDIX drivers or something. the one i had selected had some problems with my video card but now its working fabulous ^_^

Can you tell me how you do that? what kind of change?

if you are using gmplayer (that is mplayer with the GUI-frontend) then you go to preferences->video and then you can select from a list of available drivers. if you use mplayer (that is the CLI) type

$ man mplayer
or
$ mplayer --help

and look through those to find ways to set the proper video driver

I use mplayer -vo vesa filename. still can not work.
when I use command, mplayer -vo help, vesa, x11 and fbdev are listed there. when I tried to use x11 and fbdev, still can not work.

However, when I login as a root, it works fine for all the above vo drivers.
I use the command in the CLI, pure console

any suggestion?