Contrary to the mplayer documentation, the gl video output driver may work better than xv, at least for some systems, in at least two ways.
Playing a large video (1080p), xv can't keep up, and the video falls behind audio. With gl, works great. Even with xv, CPU is considerably less than 100%, so the problem is "elsewhere". Playing any video, it looks like xv attempts to sync to 60 fps, but my internal display is 50 Hz. Video looks fine on an external display (60 Hz), but there's a lot of tearing on the LCD. Video is smooth on either display using gl output. This is a laptop with intel video, other systems may be different, but if you're having any trouble with mplayer video, the gl driver is worth trying.
