Help! Updating VLC broke DeVeDe among others: Unmet Dependencies

[utherpendragonfly]

What a fiasco! I added a ppa from Webup8 to install VLC 2. Then I noticed it uninstalled DeVeDe, which is a very handy program. When I try to open it, it says it can't find mencoder. However, mencoder is installed. It also apparently messed up a lot more things!
I've spent hours trying to fix this and have probably made it worse. I removed the ppa, removed and reinstalled VLC and DeVeDe a number of times, and fixed some broken packages in synaptic (or thought I had). Now it seems ffmpeg is gone and I can't install it. Here is the problem:

davey@davey-MS-7597:~$ sudo apt-get install ffmpeg
[sudo] password for davey:
Reading package lists... Done
Building dependency tree
Reading state information... Done
Some packages could not be installed. This may mean that you have
requested an impossible situation or if you are using the unstable
distribution that some required packages have not yet been created
or been moved out of Incoming.
The following information may help to resolve the situation:

The following packages have unmet dependencies:
ffmpeg : Depends: libavcodec53 (< 4:0.7.3-99) but it is not going to be installed or
libavcodec-extra-53 (< 4:0.7.3.99) but 4:0.8.0.1~ppa2 is to be installed
Depends: libavdevice53 (>= 4:0.7.3-0ubuntu0.11.10.1) but it is not going to be installed or
libavdevice-extra-53 (>= 4:0.7.3) but it is not going to be installed
Depends: libavdevice53 (< 4:0.7.3-99) but it is not going to be installed or
libavdevice-extra-53 (< 4:0.7.3.99) but it is not going to be installed
Depends: libavfilter2 (>= 4:0.7.3-0ubuntu0.11.10.1) but it is not going to be installed or
libavfilter-extra-2 (>= 4:0.7.3) but it is not going to be installed
Depends: libavfilter2 (< 4:0.7.3-99) but it is not going to be installed or
libavfilter-extra-2 (< 4:0.7.3.99) but it is not going to be installed
Depends: libavformat53 (< 4:0.7.3-99) but it is not going to be installed or
libavformat-extra-53 (< 4:0.7.3.99) but 4:0.8.0.1~ppa2 is to be installed
Depends: libavutil51 (< 4:0.7.3-99) but it is not going to be installed or
libavutil-extra-51 (< 4:0.7.3.99) but 4:0.8.0.1~ppa2 is to be installed
Depends: libpostproc52 (< 4:0.7.3-99) but it is not going to be installed or
libpostproc-extra-52 (< 4:0.7.3.99) but 4:0.8.0.1~ppa2 is to be installed
Depends: libswscale2 (< 4:0.7.3-99) but it is not going to be installed or
libswscale-extra-2 (< 4:0.7.3.99) but 4:0.8.0.1~ppa2 is to be installed
E: Unable to correct problems, you have held broken packages.

--Right now i have the old version of VLC installed and DeVede. I tried installing a newer version of DeVeDe from a .deb package, but it said 'unable to install 'ffmpeg'.

--Do I need to manually try installing all those packages listed above? I'm clueless at this point!

[OneLine]

Did you ?

flush

The apt is caching the packages and and your error message has:

but 4:0.8.0.1~ppa2 is to be installed

Cleaning things:

man apt-get

clean
clean clears out the local repository of retrieved package files. It removes everything
but the lock file from /var/cache/apt/archives/ and /var/cache/apt/archives/partial/.

So try to

 sudo apt-get clean

If you are using the Synaptic - It has an option to do the clean from the gui.

[OneLine]

How did you ?

I removed the ppa, removed and reinstalled VLC and DeVeDe ...

There is the ppa-purge:

Description: disables a PPA and reverts to official packages
This program disables a PPA from your Software Sources and reverts your
system back to the official Ubuntu packages. You can use this to return your
system to normal after testing a new version from a PPA.
Homepage: https://launchpad.net/ppa-purge

[utherpendragonfly]

I've done 'sudo apt-get clean' and 'sudo apt-get autoremove'. I initially removed the ppa using the synaptic gui. I think I also tried the 'ppa purge' method too. And I've rebooted a few times.
When I try to open DeVeDe is still get the 'you need to install mencoder' message. I'm basically pretty confused now.

I tried this, from the ppa I added from Webup8:
davey@davey-MS-7597:~$ sudo ppa-purge ppa:n-muench/vlc
Updating packages lists
PPA to be removed: n-muench vlc
Warning: Could not find package list for PPA: n-muench vlc

PS: What does 'unable to lock the download directory' mean?

[utherpendragonfly]

So I've purged and cleaned to no avail. I opened /etc/apt/sources.list.d/ as root and deleted the ppa files that were there. VLC works just fine. But when I try to open DeVeDe I get 'Can't find the following files: mencoder. DeVeDe will not work without these files installed'.
Of course, mencoder is installed. And I can't install ffmpeg because i get the above unmet dependencies message.
I don't know what else to do, except reinstall Kubuntu. I really don't want to do that again.
Any ideas would be very appreciated.

[utherpendragonfly]

I finally found the right solution! http://askubuntu.com/questions/10669...t124934_107000
It looks like things are back to normal. I have VLC 1.1 and Devede is working again!