I recently noticed that media-libs/xine-lib-1.1.0-r1 does not have sound for mpg's. Haven't tested any arch other than amd64 or file formats other than avi, which work just fine. Downgrading to version 1.1.0 fixes the sound. Reproducible: Always Steps to Reproduce: 1. 2. 3. Portage 2.0.51.22-r2 (default-linux/amd64/2005.1, gcc-3.4.4, glibc-2.3.5-r1, 2.6.12-nitro5 x86_64) ================================================================= System uname: 2.6.12-nitro5 x86_64 AMD Athlon(tm) 64 Processor 3500+ Gentoo Base System version 1.12.0_pre6 dev-lang/python: 2.4.1-r1 sys-apps/sandbox: 1.2.11 sys-devel/autoconf: 2.13, 2.59-r7 sys-devel/automake: 1.4_p6, 1.5, 1.6.3, 1.7.9-r1, 1.8.5-r3, 1.9.6 sys-devel/binutils: 2.16.1 sys-devel/libtool: 1.5.18-r1 virtual/os-headers: 2.6.11-r2 ACCEPT_KEYWORDS="amd64 ~amd64" AUTOCLEAN="yes" CBUILD="x86_64-pc-linux-gnu" CFLAGS="-march=athlon64 -mtune=athlon64 -O2 -fomit-frame-pointer -ftracer -finline-limit=600 -minline-all-stringops -pipe" CHOST="x86_64-pc-linux-gnu" CONFIG_PROTECT="/etc /usr/kde/2/share/config /usr/kde/3/share/config /usr/lib/X11/xkb /usr/share/config /var/qmail/control" CONFIG_PROTECT_MASK="/etc/gconf /etc/terminfo /etc/env.d" CXXFLAGS="-march=athlon64 -mtune=athlon64 -O2 -fomit-frame-pointer -ftracer -finline-limit=600 -minline-all-stringops -pipe -fvisibility-inlines-hidden" DISTDIR="/var/portage/distfiles" FEATURES="autoconfig distlocks sandbox sfperms strict" GENTOO_MIRRORS="ftp://mirrors.tds.net/gentoo http://mirrors.tds.net/gentoo http://gentoo.seren.com/gentoo http://gentoo.mirrors.pair.com/" LDFLAGS="-Wl,-O1 -Wl,--enable-new-dtags -Wl,--sort-common -Wl,--strip-all" LINGUAS="en" MAKEOPTS="-j2" PKGDIR="/var/portage/packages" PORTAGE_TMPDIR="/var/tmp" PORTDIR="/var/portage" PORTDIR_OVERLAY="/usr/local/portage" SYNC="rsync://192.168.10.1/gentoo-portage" USE="amd64 X alsa avi berkdb bitmap-fonts cdr crypt cups curl eds encode foomaticdb fortran gif gpm gstreamer gtk gtk2 guile imagemagick imlib ipv6 jpeg lzw lzw-tiff motif mp3 mpeg ncurses nls nptl nptlonly ogg oggvorbis opengl pam pdflib perl png python quicktime readline sdl spell ssl tcpd tiff truetype-fonts type1-fonts unicode usb userlocales vorbis xine xml2 xpm xv zlib linguas_en userland_GNU kernel_linux elibc_glibc" Unset: ASFLAGS, CTARGET, LANG, LC_ALL
You don't have mad useflag enabled, so the mp3 decoding is being done by ffmpeg solely, and this doesn't work for most cases. Build xine-lib with +mad to have it.
Indeed, mad does the trick. Not to drag this on, but would you (someone) mind explaining why it's needed now and not on other previous versions?
It was required due to a couple of problems that internal mad version (that was the one used with -mad till 1.0.1) thrown up, and that was solved by using the external one. While I preferred the old way for a couple of version more, I was somehow forced to fix this sooner than I had foreseen. The complete details about this change is in my blog at http://planet.gentoo.org/developers/flameeyes/2005/08/18/internal_vs_shared if you want to read them.
Thank you much for the explanation and further reading.