The default VLC media player that is included with Ubuntu Natty Narwhal is VLC 1.1.9 which is quite old for now as two versions have already been released after that. However, the problem is that people at Ubuntu have not pushed the latest version of the player on Ubuntu Software Center and through the Update Manager.

The point of writing this post is that I have been facing some issues with the older version of VLC, that is 1.1.9 and was unable to upgrade it through simpler means. VLC 1.1.9 has some audio/video syncing problems, especially when you are in a habit of rewinding/forwarding movies. The unsync problems become much pronounced on several instances of seeking. First, I thought that the video clips were corrupt but later I crosschecked with VLC on Windows and found that the culprit was the player on Linux. So here is a manual method of installing VLC 1.1.11 in Ubuntu Natty Narwhal 11.04.

Go to your terminal and type the following command:

sudo apt-add-repository ppa:chimerarevo/vlc/ubuntu

Note: This is an untrusted PPA.

This will add the required repository.

Now update the package list index by typing:

sudo apt-get update

Finally type this command after the package list index is updated:

sudo apt-get install vlc mozilla-plugin-vlc vlc-plugin-pulse

And you are done! Open VLC media player and check the version in the about page. Alternatively, type the following command in the terminal:

dpkg -s vlc

After the update, the audio/video syncing problems have improved to a great extent. Infact it is unnoticeable at all.

Cheers