Various players are available:
xine: a free video player
ogle: DVD player.
okle: KDE version of ogle
mplayer: Movie Player for Linux
gstreamer: upcoming multimedia framework proj ect developing the GStreamer library and accompanying tools for audio and video recording, editing and playing, to be included in Gnome. See http://www.gstreamer.net for more.
totem: plays both audio and video files, audi o CDs, VCD and DVD.
realplay: from RealNetworks.
hxplay: a Real alternative, see HelixDNA.
Most likely, you will find one of these in your graphical menus.
The LDP released a new document recently that is very appropriate for this section. It is entitled DVD Playback HOWTO and describes the different tools available for viewing movies on a syst em that has a DVD drive. It is a fine addition to the DVD HOWTO that explains installation of the drive.
For watching TV there is choice of the following tools, among many others for watching and capturing TV, video and other streams:
tvtime: great program with station management , interaction with teletext, film mode and much more.
zapping: Gnome-specific TV viewer.
xawtv: X11 TV viewer.