I was able to play both avi and mp4 movies. Then I turned on desktop enhancements and then they would not play, not on Totem, VCL, or Mplayer. Turn off desktop enhancements and now they play again.
What is up with this?
I don’t use "desktop enhancements (3D affects). But I did read this post qutoed below. Try the suggested solution and see if it works for you:
Desktop Effects interfers with Video playback - openSUSE Forums
That fixed it.
Strange that I would need to go though that effort. A newbie, without the forums would never-ever figure that out.
GREAT!! Congratulations.
Hmmm … I’m not so sure on that.
This “fix” is not so different from the fix one needs to do if one wishes to do a screen capture, and have video show up in the screen capture.
I managed to do this some years back (screen capture), long before I joined the forums, by playing with the video settings, until I found one that worked.
I concede it can be painful.