I am in a really good mood. After 2 hours of pounding esoteric code into the Ubuntu terminal, I finally managed to compile MPlayer from its source code, and trust me, this stuff requires at least a above basic understanding of terminal commands.
For anyone else still using Ubuntu 9.04, Jaunty Jackalope, you can try compiling MPlayer for yourself from this link.
Then at the very end, install the SMplayer GUI after adding the SMPlayer PPA to your Software Sources.
Why compile from source? Because Ubuntu does not ship with the latest version in its depository by default, and MPlayer's developers themselves say:
The recommended way to install MPlayer is to compile from current SVN source
Which simply means in a very non-geeky babble speak, you get the most stable, most feature-packed, and less likely to kill you version of probably the most powerful media player for the OpenSource community.
