For VLC users who prefer installing the player via the classic .deb package, here’s an Ubuntu PPA contains the most recent (3.0.21 updated) for Ubuntu 20.04, Ubuntu 22.04, Ubuntu 23.10, and Ubuntu 24.04.

VLC media player is available in Ubuntu system repository, but always old. For the most recent version, VideoLAN provides Snap package, which however runs in sandbox environment.

Changes in recent versions of VLC media player:

Features in the most recent VLC 3.0.21 include:

• AMD Super Resolution Support.
• AMF VQ Enhancer video filter.
• D3D11 option to use NVIDIA TrueHDR to generate HDR from SDR sources.
• D3D11 HDR option to turn on/off HDR for all sources regardless of the display.

VLC 3.0.20 contains only bug-fixes, including:

• Fix crash when AV1 hardware decoder fails
• Fix crash with some AMD drivers old versions
• Other fixes.

And, VLC 3.0.19 features:

• Super Resolution scaling with nVidia and Intel GPUs
• Hardware decoding of AV1 on Windows (DxVA)
• Improve AV1 HDR support with software decoding
• Improve SMB compatibility with Windows 11 hosts.

For more, see the news page in VLC website.

How to Install VLC 3.0.21 via PPA in Ubuntu

As mentioned, the new release is available as Snap package in Ubuntu Software (or App Center), and Flatpak package in Flathub repository.

For those hate running app in sandbox, here’s the unofficial PPA contains the package for Ubuntu 22.04, Ubuntu 20.04, Ubuntu 24.04, and Ubuntu 23.10. Not only for x86_64, but also arm64/armhf CPU architecture types are supported.

1. First, press Ctrl+Alt+T on keyboard to open a terminal window. When it opens, run command to add the PPA:

sudo add-apt-repository ppa:ubuntuhandbook1/vlc

Type user password (no asterisk feedback) when it asks for sudo authentication, then hit Enter to continue. For --enable-live555 RTSP input support, use this PPA instead.

2. For Linux Mint, also run command to refresh package cache, which is done automatically while adding PPA in Ubuntu 20.04 +.

sudo apt update

3. Finally, either update VLC package using ‘Software Updater’ or install/upgrade the package directly by running apt command in terminal:

sudo apt install vlc

Uninstall:

If you found any issue about the PPA package, open terminal (Ctrl+Alt+T) and run command:

sudo apt install ppa-purge && sudo ppa-purge ppa:ubuntuhandbook1/vlc

This command will install ppa-purge tool and use it to purge the PPA, which also downgrade VLC and its dependencies to the stock versions in your system repository.

For choice, you may run command to just remove VLC media player:

sudo apt remove --autoremove vlc

Then remove the PPA either from ‘Software & Updates’ -> ‘Other Software’ tab, or by running command in terminal:

sudo add-apt-repository --remove ppa:ubuntuhandbook1/vlc