mplayer dies on vdpau

If I try to use vo=vdpau either in mplayer/smplayer, it dies.

Results of trying to play Matroska mkv hi-def movies for different contents of /etc/mplayer/mplayer.conf :

Code:

---

vo=vdpau,
#vc=ffmpeg12vdpau,ffwmv3vdpau,ffvc1vdpau,ffh264vdpau,ffodivxvdpau,
ao=pulse,

---

smplayer plays the movie
mplayer does not even start

Code:

---

vo=vdpau,
vc=ffmpeg12vdpau,ffwmv3vdpau,ffvc1vdpau,ffh264vdpau,ffodivxvdpau,
ao=pulse,

---

smplayer stops with black screen
mplayer does not even start

Code:

---

#vo=vdpau,
#vc=ffmpeg12vdpau,ffwmv3vdpau,ffvc1vdpau,ffh264vdpau,ffodivxvdpau,
ao=pulse,

---

smplayer plays fine
mplayer won't start, as usual

Log of SMplayer crash:
pastebin.com/S4B3id1g

smplayer plays regular avi files at all time.
Mplayer plays nothing.

What can I do to get the smplayer play in VDPAU mode? My card is Quadro NV140M (based on 8500GT).

What distribution+version of Linux are you running, and which nVidia driver are you running?

Linux 2.6.38-ARCH #1 SMP PREEMPT Tue May 3 07:40:34 CEST 2011 x86_64 Intel(R) Core(TM)2 Duo CPU T8100 @ 2.10GHz GenuineIntel GNU/Linux

Nvidia driver version: 270.41.06

I'm wondering if this is related to your other post about being unable to shutdown/hibernate this system. Have you tried another distribution, such as Ubuntu, Mint, Fedora?

I used to use Ubuntu a year ago before I became so fed up with it I went back to Windows. Playback was working fine on it but I can't remember if I ever used vdpau on it. Also, it was on a different laptop (Turion X2+nv go 6150)