well, i tried a different tack but failed also.

i tried to compile mplayer-vaapi on easy debian. ffmpeg claimed it had hw acceleration for a lot of codecs but wasn't telling the truth!

i installed libva-dev before the compilation which is probably why ffmpeg was boasting, but i now think libva needs a chipset specific backend which we don't have for the n900.

having said that i did notice some vaapi stuff going on in meego land, so it's not completely over yet... maybe we can get the libva backends from them.

i guess this now goes into hibernation for a bit, but at least we have a better idea of what we need.