X11 error: BadAlloc (insufficient resources for operation)

If you have gotten this error, or maybe just a blue screen with mplayer or a black window with no video in vlc, just try changing the video output driver:

$ mplayer -vo x11 some_video.wmv
    or
$ vlc --vout x11 some_video.wmv

You can also use "mplayer -vo help" to get a list of available video output drivers, if you think x11 is not right for you, as follows:

$ mplayer -vo help
MPlayer SVN-r31628-4.4.4 (C) 2000-2010 MPlayer Team
Available video output drivers:
   vdpau       VDPAU with X11
   xv          X11/Xv
   gl_nosw     OpenGL no software rendering
   x11         X11 ( XImage/Shm )
   xover       General X11 driver for overlay capable video output drivers
   sdl         SDL YUV/RGB/BGR renderer (SDL v1.1.7+ only!)
   gl          OpenGL
   gl2         X11 (OpenGL) - multiple textures version
   dga         DGA ( Direct Graphic Access V2.0 )
   fbdev       Framebuffer Device
   fbdev2      Framebuffer Device
   matrixview  MatrixView (OpenGL)
   aa          AAlib
   caca        libcaca
   dxr3        DXR3/H+ video out
   v4l2        V4L2 MPEG Video Decoder Output
   xvidix      X11 (VIDIX)
   cvidix      console VIDIX
   null        Null video output
   xvmc        XVideo Motion Compensation
   mpegpes     MPEG-PES to DVB card
   yuv4mpeg    yuv4mpeg output for mjpegtools
   png         PNG file
   jpeg        JPEG file
   gif89a      animated GIF output
   tga         Targa output
   pnm         PPM/PGM/PGMYUV file
   md5sum      md5sum of each frame

Hope that helps.