Videos have blue faces when I play them

In the bug report that Clausi links there are quite a lot of workarounds.

This tip from Le Glun de net looks like the best aproach to me.

If you have this bug (blue and red color in video are invert) and you have a nvidia, you don't have to install or uninstall any software. Just launch the "nvidia X server settings", choose your screen (X screen 0), "Xserver video settings", "Reset hardware defaults".

Note that it seems to correct itself as soon as you open the Nvidia setting for some people.

I'm running 12.04 LTS with a Nvidea GeForce 8400M GS (512 MB). SMPlayer (vers. 0.81) is my default playback app. & Totem Movie Player 3.0.1 (Movie Player using GStreamer 0.10.36)

All movies opened from hdd show "blue faces". Yet sometimes when opening "Nvidea XServer Settings", the next video I play is in normal colors. (only once...opening the same movie again will show blue faces again)

FIX :

Download and install "Sysinfo" app. and open it. Select "Nvidea" - "Nvidea Display Settings". Under "X Screen 0" select "X Server Xvideo Settings". Slide the "Hue" controller all the way down to zero.

If this didn't help (in my case no option to save this setting, but only the option to "quit" Nvidea XServer Settings"), open Totem Movie Player ;

Open the video and check for "blue faces". Let the video continue playing. Go to "edit", "Preferences", "Display" : Slide the "Hue" controller to zero. While you're sliding the Hue down, you will see the colors change to normal.

In my case the changes made in Totem Movie Player where also adapted in the SMPlayer and all videos are playing in normal colors now.

this seems to have a couple of different possible causes.

Most likely you can fix this by just using a different output method in mplayer. try:

mplayer -vo xv movie.avi

or

mplayer -vo gl movie.avi

There are similar flags for other players like vlc, and I'm sure it's in the settings page of your favourite GUI also. (I know it's in vlc and smplayer at least)