Some videos drag on for too long, which is why different video playback speed options exist—YouTube lets you increase a video’s speed by up to 2x. Now, though, the platform is testing out a wild new playback speed: 4x.
Currently, YouTube users can fast-forward through videos at double speed by adjusting their video settings or simply holding their thumb on the right side their mobile screen. A new 4x option, however, is being rolled out in an “experimental” manner and is now becoming accessible to YouTube Premium subscribers on mobile devices. The 2x option will remain the preferrable one for most cases, and the 4x one will require users to manually adjust the playback speed within the video settings menu.
This increased speed will allow viewers to consume content at an accelerated pace, compressing otherwise lengthy videos into much shorter clips. But you can argue whether at this point it counts as “consuming” content. It’s already hard to understand speech at 2x sometimes, and at 4x, speech can be unintelligible. For most videos, the sweet spot is probably 1.5x or 2x. Personally, I like 1.5x a bit more: It makes some longer videos feel zippier, and speech is pretty understandable throughout, so it basically has no downsides unless it’s already a very fast-paced video.
Some kinds of videos, like slow-paced tutorials without a voiceover, could potentially benefit from this new insane 4x speed—imagine the potential of compressing a 10-minute video into just two and a half minutes. But it’s probably too much for most of the content we tend to watch. Even if there’s no speech, you might struggle to keep up with stuff.
The 4x playback speed is currently available on both Android and iOS devices for Premium members who opt-in through the experimental features section of the YouTube app. Users can access this by navigating to their profile page, then selecting “Premium benefits” and finally “Experimental features.” These experimental features tend to stay for a limited time before Google makes a decision on whether keeping it permanently or killing it off, and a lot of them have been killed off, so check it out while you can.
Source: 9to5Google
