Can anybody help? Everytime I try opening a video file with Mplayer I get this error 'Error opening/initializing the selected video_out (-vo) device' I can play Audio no problem. I gather this maybe a video card problem. I'm using a Gforce 4 video card. Can anybody help? And could you go easy as I'm new to Linux. Thanks

Have you installed the drivers from nvidia's web site?

You have a selection of video out options with mplayer: xv X11/Xv x11 X11 ( XImage/Shm ) xmga Matrox G200/G4x0/G550 overlay in X11 window (using /dev/mga_vid) mga Matrox G200/G4x0/G550 overlay (/dev/mga_vid) gl X11 (OpenGL) gl2 X11 (OpenGL) - multiple textures version dga DGA ( Direct Graphic Access V2.0 ) sdl SDL YUV/RGB/BGR renderer (SDL v1.1.7+ only!) ggi General Graphics Interface (GGI) output fbdev Framebuffer Device aa AAlib dxr3 DXR3/H+ video out png PNG file jpeg JPEG file gif89a animated GIF output null Null video output pgm PGM file md5 MD5 sum mpegpes Mpeg-PES to DVB card yuv4mpeg yuv4mpeg output for mjpegtools (to "stream.yuv") vesa VESA VBE 2.0 video output xvidix X11 (VIDIX) You can select one at run time with the follwing command: $ mplayer -vo x11 filename.avi Go through the options (no need to do all of them!) until you find one that works (perhaps SDL, DGA, XV or X11) Once you've got one, make the change permanent by editing /etc/mplayer/mplayer.conf, you should see what to change. To get a list of available vo drivers on your system: $ mplayer -vo help For fun (if you run a VESA console), switch to a text console (Ctrl & Alt & F1) and type: $ mplayer -vo fbdev filename.avi .....cool eh?!?