YouTube’s mobile app latest update on Android and IOS has now made it possible to change YouTube playback speed on Android and IOS devices. The feature has been available on the web version long ago and now mobile app users can decrease and increase video playback speed from 0.25x (quarter speed) to 2x (double speed).
This feature comes in handy a lot as we want to fast-forward video playback sometimes, especially when watching video tutorials without having to seek the playback time bar. There are also video tutorials that are very fast and not easy to catch-up with, the new mobile update makes it easy to slow down playback and pay attention to the finer details of the video being watched.
A major problem of increasing playback speed is the audio of the videos sounds like when chipmunks are talking. YouTube Software Engineer, Pallavi Powale explained the challenge it took to overcome this, which was to effectively change the duration of audio signal without affecting the pitch or causing the Chipmunk effect. Explaining the process, Powale wrote, “On mobile, there are also often more network and hardware constraints than on desktop that limit our ability to decode video as fast as necessary. For example, less reliable wireless links will affect how quickly and accurately we can download video data, and then battery, CPU speed, and memory size will limit the processing power we can spend on decoding it. To address these issues, we adapt the video quality to be only as high as we can download dependably.”
How to Change YouTube Playback Speed on Android and IOS
Update the YouTube app to the latest version from your app store.
Open the app and play the video of your choice
Tap on the parallel three tiny dots hamburger-look alike menu to bring out video options. Choose Playback Speed as shown below.
From the options shown, you can now select the playback speed you want.
That is how to change YouTube playback speed on the mobile app. What are your thoughts?
