Changing YouTube Playback Speed

July 8, 2014 ; 14 Comments

This post originally appeared on the Algonquin Studios blog.

YouTube gives users the option to modify the playback speed of some videos. This is particularly useful in the case of videos that you are obligated to watch (training videos, terrible fan videos, the occasional conference talk, etc.) and want to get through quickly. You have the option to speed a video to one-and-a-half times normal speed and double normal speed. You can also slow a video to half speed or quarter speed, which can be handy when trying to draw out a training-over-lunch session.

In order to make a go of this, you’ll need to use the YouTube HTML5 player, which you can activate at http://www.youtube.com/html5 while logged into your Google account. If you worry about browser support (for both the HTML5 video element or the various codecs), the YouTube page will show you what your browser supports. In general, if you are using a current version of your favorite browser then you should be fine.

The opening image shows where the option lives. Sadly, that awesome video of Morrissey and George Michael doing film reviews has been pulled, so instead you can try it out on this video of Hitchcock’s The Lady Vanishes (I reference it in slide 58 of my Selfish Accessibility talk). The video also has closed captions and an audio description so it’s a great example of the accessibility features available for YouTube.

When at a video, click the gear icon at the bottom right and look for the Speed menu. If the video allows you to change its playback speed, it will be there with available options. This will only apply to the selected video. If you know of a setting to have it apply to all videos, please let me know.

If you still aren’t sure where this can handy, just try listening to Thundercats dialogue (particularly Panthro) at normal speed and then again at 1.5× normal speed. To me the difference is dramatic.

With browsers getting better at handling <video> and it appearing on more sites, know which browsers allow you to control playback speed in their default video players: Playback Speed in Default Video Players