Summary

Linux video playback is partially broken and currently inconsistent between products:

• Intro movie does not play in Generals or Zero Hour.
• Campaign movies play in Generals (video + audio).
• Campaign movies do not play in Zero Hour.

This appears to be an existing issue (not introduced by the recent W3DShroud crash fix branch).

Context

• Related PR: [sync] TheSuperHackers upstream sync 2026-04-23 #101 (contains the crash fix; video behavior was already present).
• Platform: Linux
• Rendering/audio stack: SDL3 + DXVK + OpenAL + FFmpeg build enabled

Observed Behavior

1. Launch GeneralsX on Linux:

• Intro movie is skipped / not shown.
• Campaign briefing/outro movies play (including audio).

2. Launch GeneralsXZH on Linux:

• Intro movie is skipped / not shown.
• Campaign briefing/outro movies do not play.

Expected Behavior

• Intro movie should play in both Generals and Zero Hour (or fail with explicit diagnostic and documented fallback).
• Campaign movies should play in both products with working audio.

Initial Notes

• FFmpeg is detected during Linux configure/build.
• Linux asset layout and movie path resolution may differ from expected runtime lookup behavior.
• The issue might involve product-specific movie path / lookup differences between Generals and Zero Hour runtime flows.

Reproduction

1. Build and deploy Linux targets.
2. Run Generals and Zero Hour from Linux launcher scripts.
3. Observe intro and campaign movie playback behavior.

Acceptance Criteria

• Intro movie playback works in Linux for Generals.
• Intro movie playback works in Linux for Zero Hour.
• Campaign movie playback works in Linux for Generals.
• Campaign movie playback works in Linux for Zero Hour.
• If fallback/skip is intentional, log explicit reason and document it in Linux build/runtime docs.