[RedDwarf]

Up to where I can see here there are two problems, but both have been reported previously and have workarounds.
a) intel driver version 2.1.1, from X.org 7.3, has problems using XVideo at the same time than compiz. This has been reported a lot of times in this forum.
You can update to version 2.3.2 from my personal repository (I'm still waiting for someone with an intel graphic chip to report it to Novell so we can have a proper solution).
Alternatively you can use X11 without XVideo. But the XVideo extension was created to play videos... if you use plain X11 you will have "lower quality" or higher CPU usage.
Or you can disable 3D effects/compiz...
b) VLC alsa output has problems when alsa redirects the sound to PulseAudio. This was reported by John Anderson in his blog.
You workaround this uninstalling "alsa-plugins-pulse", so the output sent to alsa doesn't passes through PulseAudio. Problem? Since PulseAudio uses the "hw" device, you probably will have sound problems if you start an application while PulseAudio is running (it autostops after some inactivity time).