digifuzzy

For the intrepid web searcher looking to solve this problem for themselves, here's what I did...
- VLC (v3.0.7.1) downgraded v3.0.6.x (no change)
- restored VLC to latest and re-installed ffmpeg, x264, x265, et al (no change)
- discovered that ffmpeg has command line access (`$ ffplay [filename]) - audio normal and no distortion
- recalled VLC had similar functionality (`$ cvlc [filename]) - distortion
All this was going on concurrent to situation with determination of correct video card settings (see forum post Confirm Video Card Settings - 1.4-release)
Discovered that video audio hardware acceleration (USE flag `vaapi` was not set in the profile for my card)
Bug FL-6636 and PR# 155 issued to address.
tl;dr - check USE flags are correct for your HW (AMD cards r100/r200 and earlier, r300->r500, r600->N.Islands, S.Islands and later)
Flags to confirm vdpau, vaapi.
Fingers crossed, but I believe this will resolve the problem for me. Recompiling...

Addressed in FL-6636 and Pull Request# 155
New 1.4-release VIDEO_CARDS mix-ins had amalgamated cards too much. New profiles were needed to separate out and better represent AMD historical product line.

Okay... that worked. <blink><blink>
Added a 'display' section to /etc/boot.conf
display { gfxmode 1024x768 } Executed `ego boot update`. Produced the desired result.
@cardinal - just to clarify somethings in my head:
a) /etc/boot.conf file surplants the /etc/default/grub file? Or rather, `boot-update` , or now `ego boot update` doesn't take settings from the /etc/default/grub file?
(this would explain why changes to /etc/default/grub were not made to /boot/grub/grub.cfg and why grub-mkconfig made a mess of things but produced desired graphical output)
b) This seems Funtoo specific...am I wrong?
https://github.com/funtoo/boot-update/blob/master/doc/boot-update.8 answered this.
 
Very much appreciate the insight you have given.

Okay...I think I found it. Embarassingly, it was probably my own foolishness. The package was unmerged about three weeks ago when I was trying to clean up. I had mistakenly used the "--with-bdeps" flag in previous emerges. When I went to use "emerge --depclean --with-bdeps=n" to clean up, it pulled out a number of packages including mdadm. I had though I had corrected this issue by re-emerging a few packages, but missed mdadm. The removal wasn't discovered until after a restart.
 

I'll look into this. THX. 
So - thanks for the help with my own foolishness everyone.
Props to Tassie_Tux for the lead/info.

Oleg,
I very much appreciate your answer, but I'm confused as I think my question is not being addressed.
 
To install icedtea -> emerge icedtea-bin then emerge icedtea. Got it.
 
However, virtual/jdk will, by default, install oracle-jdk-bin. And from you suggestions above - this can't be changed as it is the default. So virtual/jdk is tied to the oracle-jdk-bin.
 
So choices for java are...
1) install virtaul/jdk to get the default oracle-jdk
2) manually install icedtea-bin then icedtea.
 
I hope you can see the confusion I'm having here about the purpose of the virtual ebuild if choices are limited.

This was an extension of FL-1895.
Fixed with forced sync.
 
Thank you, Micha?, for fixing.

It can be done...
 
A couple of things to note:
- there is no method to alter the eselect arch profile on the command line. You have to edit /etc/portage/make.profile/parent manually. Make sense, sort of. Not something to be changed lightly.
- only had to remove /usr/local/lib32 folder (and it was empty). All others were removed with re-emerging.
- /etc/ld/so.conf was re-generated so commenting out lib32 probably not necessary.
- grub-install and boot-update reported success but I had to pull out SystemRescueCD and chroot in to redo grub-install/boot-update in order to boot. (grub-2.02_beta2-r3,boot-update-1.7.1)
 
So, it works!
Summming up updating generic x86_64 to pure64:
- make sure your system is up to date.
- change your profile (manually edit /etc/portage/make.profile/parent )
- change your make flags (edit /etc/portage/make.conf )
- re-emerge world (emerge -e @world )
- ensure boot loader is set
- perl-cleaner --all (not a requirement - but just to be thorough)
- re-establish file link: ln -s /usr/share/zoneinfo/[your time zone] /etc/localzone
 
if going from generic x86_64 to Bulldozer, do all of the above except change the profile.

Adding "--interpolated-path=/home/git-mirrors" to GITDAEMON_OPT values allows for git-daemon to "server" the repository independent of local server path.
 
so the command
 
git clone git://localhost/portage.git /usr/portage will actually clone the repository from /home/git-mirrors/portage.git into /usr/portage.
 
Note: git checkout funtoo.org is VITAL! Emerge will go back to funtoo.org if you do not do this step.
 
If you have DNS setup, you can repeat "Cloning from local git-daemon" on the local computer using
 
git clone git://server.your.network/portage.git /usr/portage  
after git checkout, emerge will now work successfully.