VLC media player in ubuntu

The VLC media player is an open source media player, distributed under the GNU General Public License. It is a highly portable multimedia player that supports many audio and video codecs and file formats as well as DVDs, VCDs and various streaming protocols. It is able to stream over networks and to transcode multimedia files and save them into various different formats.
It is one of the most platform-independent players available, with versions for Linux, Microsoft Windows, Mac OS X, BeOS, BSD, Windows CE, and Solaris.

Install VLC Media player in Ubuntu
You need to make sure that you have a “universe” mirror in your /etc/apt/sources.list
# sudo apt-get install vlc vlc-plugin-esd
This will complete the installation
To open VLC you need to go to Applications—>Sound&Video—>VLC Media Player

VLC Media Player Skins
You can download skins for VLC in http://www.videolan.org/vlc/skins.php . Download and save in your VLC directory ( ~/.vlc/skins2). You can change the skins : Settings ---> Switch interface ---> Skins 2

Using VLC for watching live video streaming
You can watch live video streaming using VLC. File ---> Open Network Stream and pick HTTP/HTTPS/FTP/MMS , type the URL and you can watch the live video streaming from your favorite URL