Make Playback Speed Control Easier to Access

Feature Suggestions
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1

First, thanks for adding Playback Speed, it’s a great addition. However, it could use a minor GUI tweak to make it more usable.

It would be much more useful and accessible if the button to change speeds was located on the left next to Subtitles, Audio Track, and Quality when you first activate the initial overlay popup – ideally in the first click to the left from Play/Pause.

Currently, it’s buried under Playback Settings, and so it takes 21 clicks to change it from 1x to 2x and return to the video, and then 17 more clicks to go back to Normal. That’s 38 clicks just to speed through a small portion of a video, like a Previously On, dialogue portions of a tutorial, or a courtside sports interview. The same applies if you simply want to watch a quick replay for something like a touchdown or penalty call at 0.5x.

A huge benefit of having playback speed is the ability to step up and down on the fly and skim through stuff while still getting to consume it. If all you were ever doing was setting an hour long video to 2x speed and then putting the controller down then it wouldn’t be that bad, but I’m sure a lot of people were hoping to use this feature in a more active way, similar to VLC, podcast apps, audio books, YouTube, or the various YouTube spinoffs like SmartTube.

Thanks!

2

On what app are you experiencing this?
I cannot reproduce this on any of the clients with which I’ve been testing the playback speed so far.

PS: as you pointed out yourself, your point #3 is a duplicate, so I’ve highlighted it as such.

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3

Thanks for the reply. This is on an Nvidia Shield using 10.14.0.541.

Playback Settings → Playback Speed → 0.5x is always highlighted first, meaning you have to then click down twice to get to Normal.

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4

I’ve forwarded this to the devs – looks like an oversight/glitch… it’s not behaving like this on the other clients. If it’s ok for you, let’s focus your suggestion on the “making the playback speed controls more accessible” part of your suggestion.

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5

Sounds good, thank you!

Edit: I condensed it a bit further to clean it up and make it more succinct since we’ve cleared up the other issues. Thanks for your help.

6

Don’t get me wrong, I am grateful Plex finally implemented playback speed after all these years (decade) too.

Agree though that the playback speed button should be located on the main playback overlay next to the play/pause button. That’s how Jellyfin has it and that’s the sole reason I can’t come back to Plex just yet.

3 Likes
7

I’d love to see the feature easier to access as well. Either with a key command, or relocated in the transport bar.

2 Likes
8

Please also make this how YouTube Premium or Xtwitter works…tap and press on a video to double speed.

Without this feature it makes it playback speed kind of useless as its too complicated to start and stop.

2 Likes
9

I like the way that SmartTube handles speed adjustments. Clicking the icon on the quick access bar enables/disables so you can easily toggle it, and long-pressing brings up the speed increments. This way you can quickly speed up or go back to normal with the least amount of clicks, but still have easy access to change what that speed is set to when you need it.

10

Please add this, there should be an easy one button way to change playback speed from 1x to 1.5x or 2x and back to 1x again.

1 Like
11

I often like to speed up or slow down videos while watching — speeding through boring parts and slowing down great scenes.

Currently on Amazon Fire Stick, changing playback speed is very tedious:
1. Press OK to open the menu.
2. Navigate to the three dots on the right.
3. Select “Playback Settings.”
4. Scroll down to “Speed” and press OK.
5. Adjust the speed and press OK again.
6. Exit out.

This entire process must be repeated every single time I want to adjust the speed.

It would be amazing if there were a dedicated button for playback speed directly next to the Subtitles and HD settings when a video is playing. It would make changing speeds fast and effortless.

Please consider my use case: many of us adjust playback speed frequently — it’s super common on YouTube (where people constantly change speeds) and on platforms like TikTok where 2x playback is standard. It’s time for Plex to catch up and make speed control a seamless part of the viewing experience!

Thanks for considering it!

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12

Bumping this cause it’s such a hassle to change speed right now and I like to change speed very often, for example speed up during boring parts and slow down during good parts of a movie or show

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13

Yes for this. Also on my mobile device (Pixel 6) the playback speed menu is bugged with the new experience and after selecting “playback speed”, the expected menu with the speed multipliers doesn’t show up unless you rotate the screen.

1 Like