Popular:
 Building Resilient Systems on AWS: Learn how to design and implement a resilient, highly available, fault-tolerant infrastructure on AWS.

Set Video Playback Speed with JavaScript

By  on  

I love that media has moved from custom plugins (Flash…gross) to basic HTML <video> and <audio> elements. Treating these media sources as just another element allows us to use CSS filters to adjust display, for example. The less we need to do with ffmpeg or plugins, the better.

I’ve been noticing that many video sites have implemented a feature to adjust video playback speed, which is awesome if you’re trying to get through some sports highlights faster or to see that monster slam dunk in super slow motion. I was hoping it didn’t require some special type of server to send the file in slower or faster chunks and I was right: all you need is the playbackRate property!

const video = document.querySelector("video");

// Slow it to 50% speed
video.playbackRate = 0.5;

// Twice as fast!
video.playbackRate = 2;

// Back to normal
video.playbackRate = 1;

Using a number less than 1 slows the video down, a number larger than 1 speeds the video up, and 1 restores the video to normal speed. Also note that playbackRate is not a HTML attribute — it’s a property.

Adjusting playback rate isn’t something you’d want to do for all video sites, but if you think your users may like it, it’s only one HTML element property away!

Request Metrics real user monitoring
Request Metrics real user monitoring
Request Metrics real user monitoring
Request Metrics real user monitoring

Recent Features

  • By
    JavaScript Promise API

    While synchronous code is easier to follow and debug, async is generally better for performance and flexibility. Why "hold up the show" when you can trigger numerous requests at once and then handle them when each is ready?  Promises are becoming a big part of the JavaScript world...

  • By
    CSS Gradients

    With CSS border-radius, I showed you how CSS can bridge the gap between design and development by adding rounded corners to elements.  CSS gradients are another step in that direction.  Now that CSS gradients are supported in Internet Explorer 8+, Firefox, Safari, and Chrome...

Incredible Demos

  • By
    NSFW Blocker Using MooTools and CSS

    One of my guilty pleasures is scoping out the latest celebrity gossip from PerezHilton.com, DListed.com, and JoBlo.com. Unfortunately, these sites occasionally post NSFW pictures which makes checking these sites on lunch a huge gamble -- a trip to HR's office could be just a click away. Since...

  • By
    Use Custom Missing Image Graphics Using Dojo

    A few months back I posted an article about how you can use your own "missing image" graphics when an image fails to load using MooTools and jQuery. Here's how to do the same using Dojo. The HTML We'll delegate the image to display by class...

Discussion

  1. Sid Vishnoi

    I created a little bookmarklet that helps me speed up the really slow videos on YoutTube 

    javascript:document.querySelector('video').playbackRate = parseFloat(prompt());
  2. Arley

    Of course it works great on as well!

Wrap your code in <pre class="{language}"></pre> tags, link to a GitHub gist, JSFiddle fiddle, or CodePen pen to embed!