Netflix has yesterday announced one of the most wanted features of any streaming platform – the Playback Speed. The platform will now let users playback their content at speeds of 0.5x or 0.75x in slow and 1.25x or 1.5x in fast mode. It has been testing this feature since last year, and now rolled out globally for everyone.
Netflix Now Let’s You Set Desired Playback Speeds
Popular video streaming platforms like Netflix and Amazon’s Prime are criticized for lacking the playback flexibility to date. But with the growing number of requests from the community, Netflix has finally introduced the playback speed settings for its Android app. Thus, you can now set the desired playback speed while watching on your smartphone or on an Android tablet.
The new feature has been in testing since last year and now rolled out officially to everyone around the world. In this, users can set the playback speed to 0.5x or 0.75x slow, or 1.25x or 1.5x in fast mode. This is still limited when compared to YouTube’s offering, where users can set between 0.25x to 2x speeds. Yet, it’s still praised by the community as it gives them flexibility.
Especially, the National Association of the Deaf and the National Federation of the Blind welcomed this move, since it helps deaf people who read the captions after watching the video on the screen. And if it’s played at a slow rate, it would be easy for them to catch with the motion of the content.
But, not all appreciated the decision. Actor Aaron Paul and director Brad Bird has criticized the move, and the director Judd Apatow said distributors like Netflix don’t have the right to change the way content is presented.
Thus, Netflix has decided to leave the choice to users, as they can set the playback speed manually for every new video they see, instead of setting it to default based on the last video’s settings.
