I’ve been getting a ton of feedback from our users about the lack of ability to natively change the playback speed of media uploaded directly into Evolve. They are frustrated with having to download a browser extension to get the same functionality of embedded or streamed videos. Please add a playback speed option to the standard controls for Media uploaded to Evolve courses.
Hi Amanda, I will raise this with the team, thanks - Sam
Hi @AmandaNewton - and indeed anyone who’s interested in this!
If we were to implement such an option, what range of speeds would you think would be suitable?
I’ve looked at the options provided by the various browsers’ own controls and they have the following:
Chrome/Edge: 0.25, 0.5, 0.75, Normal, 1.25, 1.5, 1.75, 2
Firefox & Safari: 0.5, Normal, 1.25, 1.5, 2
Additional I looked at a few custom players:
YouTube: same as Chrome
Netflix:: 0.5, 0.75, Normal, 1.25, 1.5
Vimeo: 0.5, 0.75, Normal, 1.25, 1.5, 2
Kaltura: 0.5, Normal, 1.5, 2
Side note: I was surprised by how many of the custom players didn’t even seem to have this option!
Personally I can’t really see people wanting to slow down the video but maybe that’s just me? I also feel like the range offered by Chrome/Edge YouTube is probably overkill… so I’m currently liking the Firefox/Safari option of 0.5, Normal, 1.25, 1.5, 2 the most…
We could always start with a fairly basic selection and expand it if people want more - or even perhaps allow authors to define their own range.
Hi @Matt_Leathes,
Below is a copy/paste from a feature request on Jun. 01. It has the speeds the client asked for. I reckon people might use slower if it’s a “follow along” instruction video.
Hi, here are a few enhancements my clients have asked for on Media components:
- User control for playback speed x0.75, x0.5, x1.5, x2.0
- Force captions on by default but allow the user to turn them off
- More than one language subtitles
@Sam_Cook_Evolve_LQA kindly pointed me to the global force subtitles. Force on per video would be ideal. We’ve a translated course with 5 vids in it. 3 are dubbed, 2 are in English, so we’d want to force on just for those 2.
That’s a good point. However, I didn’t explain myself very well previously… what I meant to say was that whilst I can appreciate that a learner might want to slow down the video, I’m just not sure having a range of three slow speeds (as Chrome/Edge/YouTube do) is particularly useful… two seems reasonable though.
Could you elaborate more on that? Specifically why you would only want subtitles to be forced on for the English videos…
I agree. Two is more than enough.
Here’s the use case for force on individual subs: A course is entirely in Korean, apart from two videos that are in English. It’s launching in Korea. We’ve translated the subs into Korean for the 2 English vids. The other 3 vids have Korean voiceover. So, for the English vids we want to force on Korean subs. And for the Korean voiced vids we want to leave them off but with the option to turn on if preferred.
Ah OK, thanks for clarifying. I would say that’s adding quite a lot of complexity for what I would say is a bit of an edge case, particularly as the learner can just manually switch off subtitles for the Korean videos with Korean subs. Or you could have the Korean subtitles ‘burned in’ for the videos that are in English.
Today’s Evolve release includes a new setting which allows you to have playback speed controls on the media player
I am unable to find that setting. Where exactly is it located? The media component-how2 does not mention it.
Thanks!
Oh god damn it. Now I found it Its under Course Settings > Globals > Media
That is a good point though, I will get that article updated so that it points out there are more settings at the course level.