poor web video sound and rapid video playback 12.04

I have poor sound quality from web videos. A lot of white noise. And web video play back too rapidly as well. Other video playback, on VLC for instance, is fine. But look at a youtube video or any other video streamed over a web site and the video is a mess.

I have 12.04 installed for a few weeks and video was doing fine, until today. I might have tinkered with something that changed things, but I don't know what.