okay did you check your dependencies? did you use the software installation utility (YAST) or did you compile it yourself? Do you mean that it will run the GUI but not the DVD you’re attempting to play?
I am going to install MPlayer and see if it presents issues with playback or running a GUI get back to you soon.
if your initial issue is that on entering konsole or other terminal programs and typing MPlayer you get a long list of commands its doing the same thing to me atm. I know there is a GUI interface though, I’ll have to look at the website some more.
However; if you read the command list that you recieve my erroneously just typing MPlayer in the konsole, you can see that you can specify a DVD to play via the MPlayer program with
mplayer dvd://<titleno>
and this should start the title or main menu of the DVD player, from which you can choose which scene to select or what have you. You can also add -fs for fullscreen playback which would look like this:
MPlayer dvd://<titleno> -fs (and I don’t think typing mplayer over MPlayer matter either).
also according to the documentation you need either gtk1.2 or 2.0 in order for a GUI to be handled correctly and this could be your issue. If you issue is DVD playback and not interface troubles, below the binary download section on the website there is a portion dedicated to codec packages and you can download whichever package is appropriate for your computer architecture.
on reading more the correct command for opening a gui in mplayer is to open console and type gmplayer. I got a gui with no issues from that.
as for the codecs, when you download the binaries the assumption is they are self installing; however, when I first used Mplayer I had to extract the compressed files into an mplayer folder that was in /bin or /sbin (i don’t readily recall), and as this information is a bit sketchy, it will at least point you in a good direction for getting up and running.
You still need libdvdcss! MPlayer has a dvd playback codec in its packages, but it will only work for mplayer I believe. So add an appropriate repository that will find libdvdcss and install it, but if I’m correct it is non-oss software (I believe this is how Ubuntu has it listed) and I’m actually unsure as to what that means as it does all appear to be free to me and thus I can’t see the difference 
hope it helps.
when I typed mplayer all I got was that it thought it was a typo. All my codecs are installed, im fairly certain of that. This seems to be a common problem accross the board, im starting to wonder if maybe something messed up when I downloaded and installed the disc.
Is mplayer installed? What is the output of:
rpm -qa '*layer*'
Thus far, most of the items you have raised appear to be due to inexperience in the Linux way of doing things coupled with infamiliarity with openSUSE specifics and a lack of familiarity with the Linux applications.
you typed mplayer, but did you try to type ‘gmplayer’ without the quotes.
@administrator that is a new command for me and it seems to be the popular one of the day, I guess I’d better find out all its variants. Thanks!
in addition to doing what the administrator suggest type cnf mplayer and it will tell you if mplayer itself is installed. If it is then it was an installation error. Reconsider manually compiling it if you used Install Software utility from Yast because the package could be broken, although as I downloaded it with no issues I don’t think that is the issue unless it was from a repository that you are not using such as the pacman one suggested above.
If it says it isn’t installed, then I would assume you did manually compile it and didn’t do so successfully but then we’d probably be talking about installation errors, so that isn’t as likely as perhaps downloading a broken package.
Yast is a self installer and so for it to install wrongly without the package being broken isn’t likely, as it does also choose dependencies automatically and remove (or give you the option to resolve) conflicts.
With “rpm -qa” I am doing a querry of the entire rpm database of rpms installed on one’s openSUSE installation. By specifying ‘layer’ every application with the sequence “layer” inside is shown.
I was thinking of typing "rpm -qa ‘mplayer’ " but then I noted maybe it is MPlayer and not mplayer, and I could run into a case sensitive problem.
So I thought it would not hurt to widen the search a bit, and remove the characters whose “case” I did not know, and thus only search for “layer” (which will list every application with the character sequence “layer” inside):
rpm -qa '*layer*'
of course if my memory was better, I would simply recommend to type: rpm -q MPlayer #or whatever it might be. But my memory is pathetic
linux-aiek:/home/david # rpm -qa ‘layer’
pullin-flash-player-11.2-2.1.i586
flash-player-10.0.45.2-0.1.1.i586
dragonplayer-4.3.5-0.1.4.i586
linux-aiek:/home/david # rpm -qa ‘wine’
wine-1.1.28-2.3.i586
These are the results of both a rpm command run for both mplayer and wine.
here is the result of it being run with libdvdcss:
linux-aiek:/home/david # rpm -qa ‘libdvdcss’
libdvdcss-1.2.10-6.17.i586
now correct me if im wrong, but does this not mean that it found the application on the system? if so, why can I not watch my movies?
This tells me mplayer is not installed.
I recommend you read here: Multi-media and Restricted Format Installation Guide - openSUSE Forums and follow the advice, although since you have libdvdcss installed, you can skip that part.
This is the SECOND TIME I have given this Link. For some reason you decided you wanted to ignore it the 1st time.
On Fri, 07 May 2010 05:46:01 GMT, ftdstrange
<ftdstrange@no-mx.forums.opensuse.org> wrote:
>
>if your initial issue is that on entering konsole or other terminal
>programs and typing MPlayer you get a long list of commands its doing
>the same thing to me atm. I know there is a GUI interface though, I’ll
>have to look at the website some more.
>
>However; if you read the command list that you recieve my erroneously
>just typing MPlayer in the konsole, you can see that you can specify a
>DVD to play via the MPlayer program with
>
>mplayer dvd://<titleno>
>
>and this should start the title or main menu of the DVD player, from
>which you can choose which scene to select or what have you. You can
>also add -fs for fullscreen playback which would look like this:
>
>MPlayer dvd://<titleno> -fs (and I don’t think typing mplayer over
>MPlayer matter either).
Yes, it does! *nix os’s are Case Sensitive; that redmond os is not.
Alright first off, I apologize for such a long delay, but I was out of town. Second off, I did not ignore your link oldcpu-it simply didn’t work, at all, the first time. It did the same thing-downloaded, installed, etc, but wouldn’t run. You treat me like I know nothing, and while its true Im not an advanced user like you-but I have been using openSuSe since the 7.3 release, as well as several other variants of linux, and I know enough to know when something is not working correctly, and this is the case, it is NOT working correctly, or at least wasn’t. I tweaked a few settings, and tried the directions in that link again, and got this error in totem when playing the movie “Your GStreamer installation is missing a plug-in” but fails to tell me what plugin is missing. This is certainly progress, and I will try reinstalling all the plugins, but is there a way to find what plugin I am missing?
Apologies if I misjudged your experience.
If something (like a link) is not working for you, then you need to tell us. 
… by doing so it helps avoid misunderstandings. By not telling us, it leads to the conclusion that you decided to ignore the advice.
Totem is not my favourite player. Its never worked well for me.
I recommend you install smplayer or vlc or both.
Going back to your first post, your complaint was
Please let us know where you are wrt this now so we can better (and more politely) focus the needed assistence.
alright nvm I figured out that problem to, and it is resolved, I guess one of the plugins didn’t install correctly, reinstalling them did the trick, guess I still need to fine tune some things, but at least this issue is resolved. thankyou for your time
Glad to read its working. Well done and congratulations on sorting this!
and I did not mean the link did not work, I meant following the directions did not work. I apologize, Im using a rubber keyboard and its hard to get used to so I sometimes dont explain myself as well as I should-I know how frustrating that can be to you guys. The movie player is working great, im still playing with wine, but I am new with wine-the only other time I have used it was with mandriva. so that probably is inexperience and Im sure ill figure it out, if not ill start a new topic in the appropriate forum, it was the movie thing that was frustrating me and its resolved now, thanks fo your time 
… A rubber keyboard … 
My wife has one of those on her PC. She loves it. Me, I detest it !
… as an aside, if you are using the PC in an environment where where you need a rubber keyboard because of particles or humidity in the air, you could also try a regular keyboard with a very thin plastic transparent wrap around it. I’ve done that before, and actually find that preferable to a rubber keyboard.
lol I have a regular one, several in fact. The reason for the rubber is this is a secondary system I built almost entirely from ebay (ya ya, laugh but it works) That I will be hauling out of town to where im working at, and chances are I won’t be the only one using it. I wanted something portable and indestructible, and I thought the keyboards in live free and die hard were awesome, so I bought a wireless variant. And its been driving me crazy much for the same reasons you dont like them, however, im starting to get the feel for it, enough to be worth the 21 bucks i spent on it anyway.