It seems that the mplayer version used in Gentoo has some problems with playback of streams with the ffwma2 codec - I get distortion of the moderator's voice only and not the music or commercials. I attached a stream dump that you can reproduce that properly ... uname -a -------- Linux tj 2.6.26-gentoo-r1 #3 PREEMPT Thu Sep 4 14:07:09 CEST 2008 i686 Intel(R) Pentium(R) M processor 1.50GHz GenuineIntel GNU/Linux ls -l /lib/libc[.-]* -------------------- -rwxr-xr-x 1 root root 1237276 2008-01-17 13:31 /lib/libc-2.6.1.so lrwxrwxrwx 1 root root 13 2008-01-17 17:19 /lib/libc.so.6 -> libc-2.6.1.so gcc -v ------ Using built-in specs. Target: i686-pc-linux-gnu Configured with: /var/tmp/portage/sys-devel/gcc-4.1.2/work/gcc-4.1.2/configure --prefix=/usr --bindir=/usr/i686-pc-linux-gnu/gcc-bin/4.1.2 --includedir=/usr/lib/gcc/i686-pc-linux-gnu/4.1.2/include --datadir=/usr/share/gcc-data/i686-pc-linux-gnu/4.1.2 --mandir=/usr/share/gcc-data/i686-pc-linux-gnu/4.1.2/man --infodir=/usr/share/gcc-data/i686-pc-linux-gnu/4.1.2/info --with-gxx-include-dir=/usr/lib/gcc/i686-pc-linux-gnu/4.1.2/include/g++-v4 --host=i686-pc-linux-gnu --build=i686-pc-linux-gnu --disable-altivec --enable-nls --without-included-gettext --with-system-zlib --disable-checking --disable-werror --enable-secureplt --disable-libunwind-exceptions --disable-multilib --enable-libmudflap --disable-libssp --disable-libgcj --with-arch=i686 --enable-languages=c,c++,treelang,fortran --enable-shared --enable-threads=posix --enable-__cxa_atexit --enable-clocale=gnu Thread model: posix gcc version 4.1.2 (Gentoo 4.1.2 p1.0.2) ld -v ----- GNU ld (GNU Binutils) 2.18 as --version ------------ GNU assembler (GNU Binutils) 2.18 Copyright 2007 Free Software Foundation, Inc. This program is free software; you may redistribute it under the terms of the GNU General Public License version 3 or later. This program has absolutely no warranty. This assembler was configured for a target of `i686-pc-linux-gnu'. cat /pro/cpuinfo ---------------- processor : 0 vendor_id : GenuineIntel cpu family : 6 model : 13 model name : Intel(R) Pentium(R) M processor 1.50GHz stepping : 6 cpu MHz : 600.000 cache size : 2048 KB fdiv_bug : no hlt_bug : no f00f_bug : no coma_bug : no fpu : yes fpu_exception : yes cpuid level : 2 wp : yes flags : fpu vme de pse tsc msr mce cx8 sep mtrr pge mca cmov pat clflush dts acpi mmx fxsr sse sse2 ss tm pbe bts est tm2 bogomips : 1285.11 clflush size : 64 power management: MPlayer dev-SVN-r27458-4.1.2 (C) 2000-2008 MPlayer Team CPU: Intel(R) Pentium(R) M processor 1.50GHz (Family: 6, Model: 13, Stepping: 6) CPUflags: MMX: 1 MMX2: 1 3DNow: 0 3DNow2: 0 SSE: 1 SSE2: 1 Compiled for x86 CPU with extensions: MMX MMX2 SSE SSE2 get_path('codecs.conf') -> '/home/swimmer/.mplayer/codecs.conf' Reading /home/swimmer/.mplayer/codecs.conf: Can't open '/home/swimmer/.mplayer/codecs.conf': No such file or directory Reading /etc/mplayer/codecs.conf: Can't open '/etc/mplayer/codecs.conf': No such file or directory Using built-in default codecs.conf. Configuration: --cc=i686-pc-linux-gnu-gcc --host-cc=i686-pc-linux-gnu-gcc --prefix=/usr --confdir=/etc/mplayer --datadir=/usr/share/mplayer --libdir=/usr/lib --enable-menu --enable-network --disable-tv-bsdbt848 --disable-faad-external --disable-ivtv --disable-fribidi --disable-enca --disable-ftp --disable-nemesi --disable-cdparanoia --charset=UTF-8 --disable-lirc --disable-lircc --disable-joystick --disable-inet6 --disable-unrarexec --disable-smb --disable-tv --disable-tv-v4l1 --disable-tv-v4l2 --disable-radio --disable-radio-v4l2 --disable-radio-bsdbt848 --disable-dvb --disable-dvbhead --disable-tv-teletext --disable-v4l2 --disable-pvr --disable-gif --disable-jpeg --disable-musepack --disable-pnm --disable-speex --disable-tga --disable-xanim --disable-libschroedinger-lavc --disable-libamr_nb --disable-libamr_wb --disable-liblzo --disable-twolame --disable-toolame --realcodecsdir=/opt/RealPlayer/codecs --disable-directfb --disable-ggi --disable-md5sum --disable-xinerama --disable-aa --disable-dga1 --disable-dga2 --disable-caca --disable-vesa --disable-vidix --disable-vidix-pcidb --disable-zr --disable-dxr2 --disable-dxr3 --disable-gui --enable-xvmc --with-xvmclib=XvMCW --disable-3dfx --disable-tdfxvid --disable-tdfxfb --disable-arts --disable-esd --disable-jack --disable-ladspa --disable-nas --disable-openal --disable-pulse --disable-ossaudio --disable-altivec CommandLine: '-v' 'stream.dump' init_freetype Using MMX (with tiny bit MMX2) Optimized OnScreenDisplay get_path('fonts') -> '/home/swimmer/.mplayer/fonts' Using nanosleep() timing get_path('input.conf') -> '/home/swimmer/.mplayer/input.conf' Can't open input config file /home/swimmer/.mplayer/input.conf: No such file or directory Can't open input config file /etc/mplayer/input.conf: No such file or directory Falling back on default (hardcoded) input config get_path('stream.dump.conf') -> '/home/swimmer/.mplayer/stream.dump.conf' Playing stream.dump. get_path('sub/') -> '/home/swimmer/.mplayer/sub/' [file] File size is 1471572 bytes STREAM: [file] stream.dump STREAM: Description: File STREAM: Author: Albeu STREAM: Comment: based on the code from ??? (probably Arpi) LAVF_check: ASF format Checking for YUV4MPEG2 ASF file format detected. stream type: guid_audio_stream stream concealment: guid_audio_conceal_interleave type: 28 bytes, stream: 8 bytes ID: 1 unk1: 0 unk2: 6CCE6200 FILEPOS=0x11A5 ==> Found audio stream: 1 [asfheader] Audio stream found, -aid 1 ======= WAVE Format ======= Format Tag: 353 (0x161) Channels: 2 Samplerate: 48000 avg byte/sec: 16002 Block align: 5462 bits/sample: 16 cbSize: 10 Unknown extra header dump: [0] [88] [0] [0] [f] [0] [59] [55] [0] [0] ========================================================================== ASF: audio scrambling: 1 x 1 x 5462 ASF: packets: -1 flags: 9 max_packet_size: 5493 min_packet_size: 5493 max_bitrate: 128694 preroll: 1451 ============ ASF Stream group == START === stream count=[0x1][1] stream id=[0x1][1] max bitrate=[0x1f6b6][128694] ============ ASF Stream group == END === Found movie at 0x134D - 0x134D ASF: 1 audio and 0 video streams found ASF: Searching for audio stream (id:-1). Auto-selected ASF audio ID = 1 ========================================================================== Opening audio decoder: [ffmpeg] FFmpeg/libavcodec audio decoders dec_audio: Allocating 192000 + 65536 = 257536 bytes for output buffer. FFmpeg's libavcodec audio codec INFO: libavcodec init OK! AUDIO: 48000 Hz, 2 ch, s16le, 128.0 kbit/8.33% (ratio: 16002->192000) Selected audio codec: [ffwmav2] afm: ffmpeg (DivX audio v2 (FFmpeg)) ========================================================================== Building audio filter chain for 48000Hz/2ch/s16le -> 0Hz/0ch/??... [libaf] Adding filter dummy [dummy] Was reinitialized: 48000Hz/2ch/s16le [dummy] Was reinitialized: 48000Hz/2ch/s16le Trying every known audio driver... alsa-init: requested format: 48000 Hz, 2 channels, 9 alsa-init: using ALSA 1.0.16 alsa-init: setup for 1/2 channel(s) alsa-init: using device default alsa-init: pcm opened in blocking mode alsa-init: chunksize set to 1024 alsa-init: fragcount=8 alsa-init: got buffersize=32768 alsa-init: got period size 1024 alsa: 48000 Hz/2 channels/4 bpf/32768 bytes buffer/Signed 16 bit Little Endian AO: [alsa] 48000Hz 2ch s16le (2 bytes per sample) AO: Description: ALSA-0.9.x-1.x audio output AO: Author: Alex Beregszaszi, Zsolt Barat AO: Comment: under developement Building audio filter chain for 48000Hz/2ch/s16le -> 48000Hz/2ch/s16le... [dummy] Was reinitialized: 48000Hz/2ch/s16le [dummy] Was reinitialized: 48000Hz/2ch/s16le Video: no video Freeing 0 unused video chunks. Starting playback... Increasing filtered audio buffer size from 0 to 34816 [SNIP] just the playback counter [/SNIP] A:60464.3 (16:47:44.2) of 2133437440.0 (-24.-8) 1.2%  ds_fill_buffer: EOF reached (stream: audio) A:60464.3 (16:47:44.3) of 2133437440.0 (-24.-8) 1.2%  ds_fill_buffer: EOF reached (stream: audio) A:60464.3 (16:47:44.3) of 2133437440.0 (-24.-8) 1.2%  EOF code: 1 Uninit audio filters... [libaf] Removing filter dummy Uninit audio: ffmpeg alsa-uninit: pcm closed vo: x11 uninit called but X11 not initialized.. Exiting... (End of file)