I had been using mplayer (the default) for all of my DVD and video file playing needs since I first started using MythTV back in March.

Yes it's worked just fine and I've had no complaints. Recently I decided to try out xine because of it's DVD menu support and what not. Boy was I impressed with the number of options, beautiful gui, and the flawless playback of DVDs (and menus), video files, and music alike.

I've only been using it for a couple of days and I'm still messing around with the configuration and keymappings so I haven't really given it the true test of time yet.

Is there any reason I should be using mplayer for anything? I have a fast PC so if it's just a matter of resources then it's not a big deal to me. Aside from the installation problems a few others experienced, are there any downsides I'm missing? Why isn't this the default media player?

It may well end up as the default dvd player in future versions. It is a bit more resource intensive than mplayer, and it doesn't support nearly as many codecs as mplayer, which is why mplayer will most likely remain the default player for the video plugin.

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Xsecrets

With my first install of knoppmyth I tried xine, and haven't gone back to mplayer. Xine works VERY well, and while there are a couple of things I could wish for, I'm pretty happy with it.