I often set the playback-rate of youtube videos to something like 1.25 or 1.5 to get through a video a little faster without getting bored.

But sometimes 1.25 is a little to fast for my taste.

So i just went and had a look into the html and found that i can easily get any playback speed i want by running this snippet:

document.getElementsByClassName('video-stream html5-main-video')[0].playbackRate=1.125;

This sets the speed to 1.125. But any rate will do: 0.69, 4.20, 6.666. Doesn’t matter.

It’s kinda obvious that it will throw an error if there is not at least one element on the page with the classnames ‘video-stream html5-main-video’, but nevermind.

I then added this snippet into a browser-bookmark i can click anytime i’m watching a yt video and want to set the speed.

javascript:{document.getElementsByClassName('video-stream html5-main-video')[0].playbackRate=1.125;}

  • @[email protected]
    link
    fedilink
    English
    28
    edit-2
    1 year ago

    PSA, do not copy any JS code on the web to your browser unless you understand it or it has been validated by many others.

    in general, well-established browser extension are unlikely to be malicious, but random JS code on the internet can.

    (in this specific case, the code seems fine to me.

    • @[email protected]
      link
      fedilink
      English
      131 year ago

      I was actually surprised that you could still bookmark javascript: URLs since you can’t paste them into the address bar anymore.

  • @breadsmasher
    link
    English
    15
    edit-2
    1 year ago

    Doesnt youtube have a playback speed option built into the player?

    Sorry, I get it. This allows any playback speed whereas youtube has specific options

    • @[email protected]OP
      link
      fedilink
      English
      51 year ago

      Yes, but it goes in steps of 0.25 and that sometimes is too coarse/rough.

      E.g. 0.50, 0.75, 1.00, 1.25, 1.5

      This snippet is just to get a little more fine-grained control.

    • @MysteriousSophon21
      link
      English
      51 year ago

      I think what they’re trying to tell you is that you can have ANY playback speed instead of the 4 options given by the built in player.

  • @[email protected]
    link
    fedilink
    English
    91 year ago

    If you replace the speed number with Number(prompt(“New speed:”, 1.15)) you should get a dialog box to put a new speed in, so you don’t have to make multiple bookmarks.

  • @zephyr
    link
    English
    81 year ago

    BTW, glad to see bookmarklets still living. If I wasn’t wrong, Firefox seems to be the only browser supporting it.

    • Madbrad200
      link
      English
      21 year ago

      Chromium browsers still support bookmarklets

  • @Darkmeatduck
    link
    English
    71 year ago

    I use Enhancer for YouTube. It uses step increments of .1 plus has a ton of other features like being able to take a screenshot of the video.

  • @[email protected]
    link
    fedilink
    English
    51 year ago

    I use a plugin called Video Speed Controller, it‘s probably my most used browser extension. You can configure hotkeys as well, which makes it very convenient. I use Q/E for -0.5/+0.5 and A/D for -0.1/+0.1 so I can finetune the playback to my liking with just couple keypresses.

    There’s also a small window in the top left of the video showing the current speed, which you can toggle by pressing V.

  • vizhal007
    link
    English
    41 year ago

    Why not just use an extension?

    • @[email protected]OP
      link
      fedilink
      English
      2
      edit-2
      1 year ago

      because doing stuff yourself is fun*!*

      but yeah, for most people and most use cases using an extension is obviously the better choice :)

    • @zephyr
      link
      English
      11 year ago
      • enhancer for yt is closed source afaik
      • vizhal007
        link
        English
        11 year ago

        I use vidspeedcontroller

  • @lemminer
    link
    English
    41 year ago

    This community is full of nice smart little tips! I 💕 it!

  • @zephyr
    link
    English
    31 year ago

    Saved.

    Thanks for this. Used to get a browser extension just for this. Some people on youtube talk reaaally slow that x2.0 sounds like their normal talking speed

    • @[email protected]
      link
      fedilink
      English
      11 year ago

      No kidding. I’ve found I’ve got increasingly more impatient with slow talkers since I started messing with the playback speed. I used to watch videos at 1.25-1.5x, now its up to 2.5-3x

  • Adda
    link
    fedilink
    English
    31 year ago

    This is a great solution, but unnecessarily cumbersome to use, in my opinion.

    For the same outcome, I use Video Speed Controller to modify playback speed of any video on any website.

  • @yourdogsnipples
    link
    English
    21 year ago

    Nice one, thank you! This’ll come in handy for when even 2x isn’t fast enough to get to the point.