If you watch a lot of online video, as I do in order to stay up to date on the latest technologies, you might find it useful to speed up the video so that you can get through everything more quickly and save yourself some time.
To do this, I use a free extension for the Google Chrome web browser called Video Speed Controller.
I find I can easily watch videos at 1.7x speed. This extension lets you go up in steps of 0.1x, so you can quickly speed up, slow down, and rewind 10 seconds when you need to.
Particularly useful are the keyboard shortcuts. As the presenter of the video speeds up, slows down, or covers something less interesting, you can use the keybaord shortcuts to very easily and quickly change the speed:
- A = Rewind 10 seconds (very useful!)
- S = Slow down 0.1x
- D = Speed up 0.1x
- R = Reset to normal 1x speed
A little wrinkle: it only works on HTML 5 videos, not Flash videos. Still, it will serve you well most of the time, since Flash video is old now, and on its way out (arguably!).
If you want to speed up Flash video as well as HTML 5 video, then try Enounce MySpeed. It costs $29.99, but it works well. It also has shortcut keys, and a nice slider that can appear to control video speed. Unfortunately it doesn’t have a way to quickly rewind video by 10 seconds. Still,
Good to see real expertise on display. Your contribution is most welcome.