Comment 2 for bug 278318

Same here on an intel gma 950.

You can work around this problem in totem. If you run 'gstreamer-properties' from the terminal, select the video tab, and select 'X Window System (X11/XShm/Xv)' for the plugin option. You can select Overlay or Textured mode in the Device options. Textured mode gives be the tearing effect, Overlay seems to get rid of it. I assume this will work on all gstreamer based players.