It seems to be the general feeling that quite a lot of people like xmms for mp3s and mplayer for video format files. One thing I must say is that, having compared mplayer and Xine, I have found that mplayer seems to have, in the default installation, a lot more codecs installed; I had trouble playing one file in Xine.

I prefer mplayer, expecially since they now have it integrated into KDE and even a mplayer plugin for Mozilla that will even play quicktime files.

I find mplayer runs video smoother and faster, which is very important for slower systems.

I don't see a difference between mplayer and xine when it comes to performance or crashes.If you want a working gui - go for xine.If you don't - go mplayer.

Many helpful suggestions - thanks everybody. I'm going to try mplayer first but from a quick glance at their homepage

http://www.MPlayerHQ.hu/homepage/design6/news.html

it seems like there's a major revision imminent ( to version 1.0pre1 ) so might be worth waiting for that.

james.

Nah, go for it, it's ready. You can always update/upgrade when the actual release comes out

Cool

The major revision is always the one before the next one.

mplayer because its fast light and have good support
for many types of video/audio files

mplayer

Xine: Generally easyer, more is included, however compile sometimes does not work, on some systems running make will simply loop the configure script, also it is hard to add to. also after compiling xine-lib you need to manually run ldconfig before compiling the ui
Mplayer: What does it not have? I went clicked every link in the docs, d-loaded every program and dll and codec it linked to, compiled it all (made a scritp as there are over 100 programs to compile - If someone wants this script msg me) then ./configure --help enabled and disabled everything accordingly, then boom no format I have found will not play.
Xmms: Awesome for mp3's, wouldn't recommend for anything else.
ogle: dvd-only for the most part, very easy never had it fail to compile, generic bland interface though

I need a media player with media library facilities which can handle multiple genres (preferable seperated in the tag with semi-colons Any thoughts?

It's ironic that Windows Media Player 9 is the best player in this regard, and it's the only thing which ties me to windows.

mplayer
mplayer can use windows dll's (some may need porting spposed to be easy) has built in support for all mpeg's divx, some rm, some other stuff, also ogg, mp3, etc. I have it support all mpeg and divx, sorenson, xvid, quicktime(6 or 7 and below) all reaplayer formats, matroska, dvd with css, vcd, and tons and tons of others. go to www.mplayerhq.hu and then go to documentation and read through, there are tons of links to supported format libraries and everything else.

Hi james,
I have been using RHL 5.0 and have now migrated to RHL 7.1. I have in the recent past, installed mplayer and then xine on my system running Pentium II 266 Mhz, Intel 440LX motherboard with 81MB RAM. I have successfully used both Xine and mplayer and in my opinion Xine is fantastic when compared to mplayer. Xine has got a complete GUI which is more user friendly than mplayer. Mplayer sometimes didn't recognize my mp3 files on a CDROM saying that the format wasn't supported!!
Very strange.
Try both the players, but Xine is excellent for a newbie. Take my word for it.

mp3? go for xmms
video?? go for mplayer

xine?? a little bit complicated to start, I remember having problem getting used with its UI... it spawn too much dialogs... I have problem playing dat (VCD files) which I copy to hd with xine (I don't know if the problem already fixed, since I'm not using it anymore...)...

mplayer still the best media player in the world (it's my opinion), I have funny experience with mplayer while playing mov (Quicktime movie) file, when I play it with Quicktime 6 (win version), the sound didn't went out, but surprisingly, it did using mplayer...

a little note for newbies: compiling mplayer by yourself sounds pretty scary, but believe me, it does nothing more than typing 3 lines of command, once you have it, you'll getting used to it...

This is just my opinion but to me Linux doesn't have a decent video player.

Xine- As many have already said, configuration can be a pain and it can only play a few video types. I also think it's rather ugly.

Mplayer- I truly hate this app. Pain to install (something went wrong often) and it really doesn't like laptops. I have tried it in three different laptops and it will only play when I constantly move the mouse. It has a basic GUI that doesn't really work and I hate typeing the path to my files. Say anything you want about me but I would much prefer to navigate to the files I want to play through a GUI window. I don't always remember the exact names of my folders or files and the whole case sensitive thing still bugs me. I could use it as the default and choose the file from a file manager but Mplayer often gives me subpar results.

The good thing about Mplayer is that it plays just about any file type.

Real one- This is an intrusive god awful app in any OS.

The best thing to do is to try them. Many people love Mplayer and several love Xine. Like everything it just comes down to personal preference.

Nice to see the thread's still ticking-over! I compiled mplayer a few evenings ago but haven't had time to use it yet! It was pretty easy to install - although, as I think a few people have noted, the documentation makes it look much a more complex proceedure than it is.

james.