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Netflix is Letting People Watch Things Faster or Slower With New Playback Speed Controls (theverge.com) 49

Posted by msmash from the interesting-moves dept.
Netflix is letting people choose the speed at which they want to watch something on their phone or tablet with new playback controls. From a report: Netflix will allow anyone on an Android mobile device to stream at either 0.5x or 0.75x speeds for slowed-down viewing and 1.25x or 1.5x speeds for faster watching. Those are slightly fewer options than YouTube, which allows people to slow all the way down to 0.25x speeds, and speed up by twice the normal playback speed. Playback speed options are also available on downloaded titles that people have saved for offline viewing. Subscribers must opt in to use the playback speeds with every single title they want to watch; it won't just remain active when you pick something else to watch. This prevents people from accidentally watching everything at 1.5x speed if they don't want to. The feature is rolling out tomorrow and will be available to everyone globally in the coming weeks.

Netflix announced it was testing the feature in 2019 and was met with backlash from Hollywood's creative community. Actor Aaron Paul and director Brad Bird spoke out against Netflix's decision to introduce the playback controls, and director Judd Apatow tweeted in October that "distributors don't get to change the way the content is presented." Netflix's team is introducing a number of features with the rollout to try to work with the creative community to ensure the quality of the content isn't disrupted, including automatically correcting "the pitch in the audio at faster and slower speeds," according to the company.
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Netflix is Letting People Watch Things Faster or Slower With New Playback Speed Controls More

Netflix is Letting People Watch Things Faster or Slower With New Playback Speed Controls

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  • The MX Player for Android, and probably others of which I know nowt, allows for speeds from 25% to 400% with good pitch-shifting of audio from around 80% to 150% and half-decent lower and higher. I would not advise that you break terms-of-service or violate copyright that you might use these better players, but I will say that it does create a perhaps-unfortunate incentive thereto do. I repeat, I strongly suggest that you not violate the law to use them, but where you may use something decent as opposed t

  • I had recently posted a message in a previous thread about the Movies going straight to streaming. Responding to someones post that get annoyed when other people laugh at a joke or clap when something happens, is actually part of the experience, and these movies should be watched at normal speed as to get the proper experience, as there is a pause or a slow period after a joke, or a shock, and that watching shows as 2x speed just becomes an infodump vs enjoying the experience.

    • Be curious to hear what types of content people like this for?

      Although I do a lot of skipping through videos, certainly. That really is the killer feature over TV, skipping the filler. If they ever restricted that (didn't TiVo do that?) youtube is over.

      • I can see this feature when used for eBooks, or even webcasts. Where they are often just an info-dump. But Netflix is more about entertainment and what they have to show was designed to be played at that speed. I can see if you are watching the show over and over again. You may want to skip some scenes.

        It reminds me of that one Episode of TNG where Data was learning comedy, to save time, he had the Comic go at full speed. Only to have data to tell the jokes to come out badly because timing is just as impo

        • It doesn't matter if the content was designed to be viewed only in a certain way. Fair use allows us to speed up or slow down, use subtitles, use dubbing, pause to go to the toilet right at the exciting bit, or otherwise screw up with things.

        • But Netflix is more about entertainment and what they have to show was designed to be played at that speed.

          True, but directors often overdo the dramatic pauses. I find that a lot of shows I watch really drag because the director thought making me wait a long time to see what the character was going to do or say would build up drama/suspense. Heck, maybe the director is even right. But it annoys me and I think I will like a lot of these shows better if I can speed them up a little.

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by Calydor ( 739835 )

        How do you know if what you're watching is filler or there's about to be an important detail mentioned in an offhand remark? If you're just gonna skip through half of a video, why not just look up a summary you can read through in 30 seconds?

        • Why bother reading a summary when you can skip something completely?

        • Because you've seen it before! Or you haven't and you're at a cringey bit you want to get past, or your date says "ugh, I hate horror movies, please fast forward past this part". The point is that the consumer has the right to make these decisions no matter how much the executive staff at a movie studio will cry when you do it. Even *pausing* the playback is violating what the directors or producers want, but I haven't heard of any trying to ban streaming services from doing this (much less dvd players,

      • Be curious to hear what types of content people like this for?

        Although I do a lot of skipping through videos, certainly. That really is the killer feature over TV, skipping the filler. If they ever restricted that (didn't TiVo do that?) youtube is over.

        I don't know whether I'd use it on Netflix movies or shows, but I watch most YouTube content at 2x speed. I find that people just taaaaalk toooo slooooowly otherwise. It may be the difference between having a script or not, so it may not be as applicable to produced content.

      • There's currently a new Transformers cartoon that's Netflix only that people are saying feels like it was made in slow motion. Those who have sped it up to 1.25 speed say it ALMOST feels natural at that speed, though they think it might be better even faster.

      • Faster playback is amazing for documentaries and similar shows.

        Its also great for video conference recordings FWIW.

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by rtb61 ( 674572 )

        I used it a lot on Star Trek Discovery, oh my the STD of star trek series (and I do mean sexually transmitted disease). Watched a whole season in around four hours, I could not even try to tackle the subsequent seasons. Really annoying kept sitting there in continue to watch on netflix, so I skipped to the very last episode and watched the final few moments, enough to kick the STD of Star Trek to already watched, rather than continue to watch, so I never had to see the title again. Do they still screen it o

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by Kadman ( 930831 )
      It's like appreciating a good novel via CliffsNotes.

    • Judd Apatow already cried about the sanctity of the filmmaker's vision, and he was wrong too. Your opinion is old, rented, and wrong. Films are products of their times. They're created with the current sensibilities of audiences in mind. If a difference audience wants to watch them at a different speed, that's their prerogative. If you don't like the feature, don't use it.

    • So, these auteurs can have the feature turned off if they're so upset. Also they can ask that subtitles be removed, or dubbing into other languages be disallowed, because that spoils the American Cinema experience. Presumably they're not happy having their grand vision being displayed on a tiny 3 inch screen anyway so that can ask that their works of art only be shown on 50" or larger televisions.

      In the meantime, I'm still fast forwarding through the boring parts. If it's a news broadcast or a baseball g

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by NFN_NLN ( 633283 )

        > So, these auteurs can have the feature turned off if they're so upset.

        It's pronounced: autists

    • I've used it for TV shows.

      The time saved playing 1.4x (about where I could comfortably follow along) was well worth it for me over a 20 episode season of 45 minute episodes when I was burning though.

      I'd never do it for a movie unless I was trying to cram out a paper or something.

      I probably wouldn't do it for the more modern shorter TV shows either.

  • Faster speeds should include Kevin Costner setting (Score:3, Funny)

    by Kadman ( 930831 ) on Friday July 31, 2020 @01:55PM (#60352347)
    I'm thinking something like 16x might give viewers a better chance of making it to the end without falling asleep.

  • Speeding up or slowing down a performance could be considered a derivative work and a copyright infringement even if they have the rights to stream it. Yes, there are streaming companies like ClearPlay or CleanFlix that edit out profanity and scenes at playback, but they are doing so under a new law passed in 2005 that doesn't apply to the general case.

    • Copyright law gives content producers the right to control distribution of their work. That's it. That's why you can splice together your own version of a movie hosted on your media server, and the copyright police won't come knocking on your door. It only becomes a copyright version if you try to distribute your version of someone else's copyrighted work. In Netflix's case, if they're streaming a movie at 1.5x speed, that would probably be considered distributing, and thus falls under the jurisdiction of [slashdot.org]

    • It's not a derivative by Netflix, it is a derivative by the consumer. And consumers are allowed to do this. We can read the books we buy at any speed; we can play our DVDs back at half speed and even pause them, we can play records backwards and try to find hidden messages, we can pause that VHS tape at the Sharon Stone scene so often that the next Blockbuster customer complains that there's only static there, and so forth.

    • Speeding up or slowing down a performance could be considered a derivative work and a copyright infringement even if they have the rights to stream it. Yes, there are streaming companies like ClearPlay or CleanFlix that edit out profanity and scenes at playback, but they are doing so under a new law passed in 2005 that doesn't apply to the general case.

      I disagree with you and the content creators. If streamers are allowed to let the viewer select their resolution, or their bitrate, or their screen size, then there's really no meaningful difference letting the viewer select how rapidly the scene unfolds. More specifically, if a viewer is allowed to jump forward, there's really no difference. Time, like bandwidth, is a resource.

  • I have had satnd-alone DVD Players that let me watch up to 1.25x and 0.75x with audio.

    And before that I played fast and loose with the vinyl player @ home.

    My PCs media player has had that ability for decades

    Is not "the content distributor" that decides the speed at which the content is presented. It is we, as a consumesr the ones who decide. The distributor is just giving us the tools to do so.

  • Why dredge up this old story now? It's almost two months too soon [variety.com] to post old news.

  • IIRC, and it was sort of revolutionary because it adjusted audio pitch so as to compensate. Had a nice zoom function too.

  • It's nice to have these options, but why not more? I remember the delightful setting in some DVD player app--maybe PowerDVD--where you put in how much time you have for the film to finish (maybe you have some appointment) and it would speed it up by the exact right ratio. And I bet that if I just set 1.05X for everything, I wouldn't really notice it, but I would save a significant amount of time each week.

  • I guarantee Netflix will keep stats on the most popular scenes to slow down and speed up.

    I bet $5 the most slowed down feature explosions or boobs. The most speeded up are dramatic character-developing conversations. Any takers?

    • I doubt it.

      I half watch TV a lot, and I find myself skipping backwards more often when it seems like I missed something dramatic than for action.

      Usually it's because I'm confused as to why the action is happening, so I back up to 99 seconds before and see the escalation.

  • Judd Apatow tweeted in October that "distributors don't get to change the way the content is presented."

    Buddy, get over it. Distributors have been changing the presentation since forever. Letterboxing and/or "modified for content and duration" ringing any bells? And viewers (you know, the people who actually pay for this stuff?) have been repeating and/or skipping your carefully crafted scenes since about two seconds after the invention of the home VCR.

    Anyway, if your art means that much to you (and yay for you if it does, we need passionate people), you'll need to negotiate a better distribution contract. Bu

  • Playing movies slower or faster has been a feature on some of the better Video Cassette Recorders in the 1980s already. Kind of sad such is now touted as something noteworthy new. And of course, those who pay for the media should decide how they watch them, and those are not "directors", but the customers. Or do you let the cook decide how fast you eat the meal you bought?
  • i've been using a Chrome extension for years called Video Speed Controller, works on everything. great for speeding up talking head videos. i kind of understand the movie studios/directors objecting to this, but there's a lot of content (documentaries, etc) where this is very useful to shave time

  • 1st let me say that I LOVE watching information youtube content at 1.25 or 1.5x speed.
    We are mortal beings and you can consume more news each day if you increase the speed of consumption.

    Now on to my point. As someone that loves this feature - I would never, and have never, used it for standup comedy.
    And I watch standup comedy often. Why? Because comedy is all about timing. You screw up the timing and its not as funny.

    Now think about what the job of an editor is on a huge hollywood production.
    Their job is t

  • Don't know about NetFlix (don't have it), but I speed up Amazon, Plex and all of the official anime sites (Funimation, HiDive) I watch in a browser with this: GitHub [github.com], Web Store [google.com]

    Sometimes I have to reload the page for it to take effect, no big deal. Only works with a full browser though, the mobile/tablets can't load it.


    "Hollywood's creative community" What a laugh. At best you only create it -- don't tell me how I "must" process it. And at worst, I time no time to bother with you, even at 100x.

    O

  • Taking it further (Score:3)

    by petes_PoV ( 912422 ) on Saturday August 01, 2020 @01:11AM (#60354501)
    All this is really just dancing around the real problem

    How about an option to completely skip all the boring stuff? Once Netflix is able to receive data about which content segments many viewers manually FFwd past, it shouldn't be too difficult to create an option that automatically speeds past those scenes. Maybe there could even be a threshold 1 - 9. Depending on just how short a person's attention span is.

    That might even be a good, objective, way to rate content

  • All you need is a web browser and a plugin to alter the speed of videos - works for any HTML5 content. Use a wide range of speeds way outside the Netflix range.

    And I cannot stress enough how wrong Judd Apatow and other filmmakers are in fighting Netflix over this. Not only is it irrelevant, because you can do it anyway in a web browser, but presenting controls to users for how they wish to enjoy (or bugger up) the content is NOT the distributors messing around with how content is presented. Netflix is still

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