VLC is an open source video viewer that is known to support a very large number of video codecs, including the lossless codec that we use with mencoder to create movies from png files. On Linux we use VLC to view movies created by mencoder. It also runs Macs and Windows, although we don't use it on those systems.

This is the vlc web site.

Installing vlc

General remarks about installing vlc.

Linux Install

sudo apt-get update
sudo apt-get -y install vlc

Mac Install

Windows Install

Using vlc

On Ubuntu start vlc from Applications | Sound & Video | VLC media player, then use the VLC Media | Open file... menu option to open a video file to view. Unfortuantely VLC does not have the typical video player fast forward/reverse/frame step options, it only has play and pause.

The Ubuntu default video player is called Totem, so double clicking a movie file will bring it up in Totem, not VLC. You would need to change the Ubuntu file associations to have VLC be the default player for movie files.