Comment 49 for bug 278318

I just tested the patched driver and it solves the problem for me.

After disabling textured video in xorg.conf, mplayer, totem-gstreamer and vlc use the overlay port and the screen tearing is gone. So with this patch enabled again I think we'll be able to consider this bug as solved.

Flash does also still have video tearing for me, but I think it simply doesn't use xv but videos still play fine and don't suddenly stop for me as j described. I also don't see the initial screen flicker that has been reported.

tghazali: After installing the new driver, you can disable textured video in your xorg.conf. To do this, simply add Option "TexturedVideo" "false" in the Device section of /etc/X11/xorg.conf like this:
Section "Device"
        Identifier "Configured Video Device"
Option "TexturedVideo" "false"
EndSection

Finally, thanks to all the people posting great workarounds here and of course to Bryce Harrington for solving this thing!