VA API slowly -- but surely -- making progress

The only way to really promote interest in VA API is if it provides a way to get the hardware acceleration without using the proprietary drivers. If I have to use NVIDIA's proprietary driver anyway in order to get VDPAU, what is the additional benefit of VA API? And since NVIDIA and ATI unfortunately have a vast majority of the desktop market, until the developers of the free drivers for these cards take an interest in supporting hardware acceleration, those of us using (or developing) things like MythTV are stuck with the proprietary drivers anyway for HD and aren't likely to be interested in VA API.