mplayer & vlc don't work, totem does

[Paul Cartwright <ale@pcartwright.com>]

I have a feeling that this issue is related to my not being able to install 
the NVIDIA driver. When I try to start either vlc or mplayer via the konsole 
I get this:
~$ vlc
VLC media player 0.8.6a Janus
Segmentation fault

and it crashes.
I think I have tried reinstalling both, with no success.. any clues or logs to 
look for?
-- 
Paul Cartwright
Registered Linux user # 367800