so.. why mediaplayer authors used gstreamer, not ffmpeg? I had same problem related to this topic. My .m4a files includes audio in ALAC (Apple loseless audio codec, same with FLAC, and opensource too), which perfectly played by, 4ex, mplayer with ffalac. Now I have to use SMPlayer instead stock mediaplayer, it's not useful and comfort, because SMPlayer eats a lot of CPU and RAM, which on my N900 not in prosperity...