Penguin
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MPlayer is a MediaPlayer for Linux and other unix-like OSes. It also runs on MicrosoftWindows using Cygwin.

MPlayer plays a huge number video formats, many using OpenSource CoDecs included with MPlayer (such FFmpeg's libavcodec for MPEG 1, 2 and 4). Proprietary CoDecs such as RealPlayer !RealMovie? can be played by using the Windows DLLs and the avifile library (obviously this is less than optimal so use MPEG 4 for all your DVD rips ;-)). MPlayer can play MP3 and OggVorbis, so you can also play video with sound encoded with those codecs. It's suboptimal for DVDs as it does not support DVD menus.

MPlayer is also quite flexible. It can output video to X11, XV, DGA, OpenGL, SVGAlib, fbdev, DirectFB?, GGI, SDL and AAlib (try that one if you are bored one day). MPlayer can be used with a normal GUI but this GUI can be disabled completely which allows you to control it from a remote control, keyboard or joystick. Joystick might seem a bit useless, but you could use a wireless gamepad or a PlayStation2 console remote.