Open Terminal via Keyboard Shortcuts

Open System / Preferences / Keyboard Shortcuts

Now find the one called Run a Terminal

Click on the column opposite saying disabled and hit CTRL+ALT+T, then close the dialog

Now everytime you hit CTRL+ALT+T a terminal window will open.

Improve VLC + Keyboard Shortcuts

CTRL+CURSOR-UP  => increase volume
CTRL+CURSOR-DOWN  => decrease volume
SPACEBAR  => pause movie

Also don't install the XINE packages, GStreamer is much faster for video playback

sudo apt-get remove xine
sudo apt-get autoremove

Also if you've got a slow video card, try changing the de-interlacing mode in VLC to discard via VLC / Video / Deinterlace / Discard.

If that doesn't work, try changing your Appearance settings to Normal via System / Preferences / Appearance, then Visual Effects and select Normal. It's a good balance and you'll still get the cube desktop.

...also found this which suggests using the blend deinterlacing mode to improve DVD playback,

gedit ~/.local/share/applications/vlc-dvd.desktop

Scroll down and find the line reading...

Exec=vlc %U

Replace that with...

Exec=vlc --vout-filter deinterlace --deinterlace-mode blend --volume 512 %f