Why doesn't mplayer work with VDPAU?

Question

I'm trying to play a HD video file, the command to play the video is:

mplayer -vo vdpau -vc ffh264vdpau

And the error I get is:

[mkv] Track ID 1: video (V_MPEG4/ISO/AVC), -vid 0
[mkv] Track ID 2: audio (A_AC3), -aid 0, -alang und
[mkv] Will play video track 1.
Detected file format: Matroska
VIDEO:  [avc1]  1280x720  24bpp  23.976 fps    0.0 kbps ( 0.0 kbyte/s)
Load subtitles in .
SUB: Could not determine file format

[vdpau] Error when calling vdp_device_create_x11: 1
Error opening/initializing the selected video_out (-vo) device.
==========================================================================
Opening audio decoder: [ffmpeg] FFmpeg/libavcodec audio decoders
AUDIO: 48000 Hz, 2 ch, s16le, 384.0 kbit/25.00% (ratio: 48000->192000)
Selected audio codec: [ffac3] afm: ffmpeg (FFmpeg AC-3)
==========================================================================
[AO OSS] audio_setup: Can't open audio device /dev/dsp: No such file or directory
AO: [alsa] 48000Hz 2ch s16le (2 bytes per sample)
Video: no video

This is my information:

My OS:

$ cat /etc/lsb-release
DISTRIB_ID=Ubuntu
DISTRIB_RELEASE=12.04
DISTRIB_CODENAME=precise
DISTRIB_DESCRIPTION="Ubuntu precise (development branch)"

Kernel:

$ uname -a
Linux  3.2.0-35-generic #55-Ubuntu SMP Wed Dec 5 17:45:18 UTC 2012 i686 i686 i386 GNU/Linux

GPU:

$ lspci | grep "VGA"
01:00.0 VGA compatible controller: NVIDIA Corporation NV44A [GeForce 6200] (rev a1)

Driver:

$ glxinfo | grep OpenGL
OpenGL vendor string: NVIDIA Corporation
OpenGL renderer string: GeForce 6200/AGP/SSE2
OpenGL version string: 2.1.2 NVIDIA 295.40
OpenGL shading language version string: 1.20 NVIDIA via Cg compiler

VAINFO:

# vainfo
libva: VA-API version 0.32.0
Xlib:  extension "XFree86-DRI" missing on display ":0".
libva: va_getDriverName() returns 0
libva: Trying to open /usr/lib/dri/nvidia_drv_video.so
libva: va_openDriver() returns -1
vaInitialize failed with error code -1 (unknown libva error),exit

How can I fix my problem?

Answer 1

It seems there is no Xvideo support for your video card available.

Try to use: mplayer -vo xv filenameToPlay

Answer 2

For the record, in case it's useful to somebody: I was not able to get mplayer to play vdpau files, nor to use ffmpeg to convert these files to another format. But I was able to use vlc on the command line to convert the file to a playable format (apt install vlc-bin):

vlc --sout "#transcode{codec=mp4}:std{access=file,dst=output.mp4}" "input.avi" vlc://quit

Answer 3

Have you installed the nvidia driver? That will install libvdpau which will give you vdpau support. Install the driver via hardware drivers or software center.