VP8 playback problems

VP8 playback on Trisquel Taranis is possible using Totem after following these instructions.
http://libreplanet.org/wiki/Group:PlayOgg/PlayWebM

However other players such as VLC or GNOME-MPlayer cannot playback this format.
VLC provides the following error:

No suitable decoder module:
VLC does not support the audio or video format "VP80". Unfortunately there is no way for you to fix this.

Also, the file manager Nautilus does not create a preview image for the .webm video files. One can solve this issue by renaming to .MKV or changing the container to .MKV using e.g. mkvmerge GUI. It should also be noted that Nautilus does not always create a preview image for .OGG video files which use the .OGG container (renaming to .OGV solves the problem).
Any help is appreciated.