Speed up playback watching video (include 1.1x to 1.5x ffwd rate with audio)?

Prizm4 Wrote:I'm personally not too fussed about playback speed, but these arguments against the feature are seriously flawed and invalid. Makes me wonder what other features in XBMC are neglected simply because someone says "nuh-uhh, I don't watch movies like that, so no one else should!!111"

I said I find it an abomination and an insult to the makers of the media, why its not there are two parted (which I also stated)

a) No dev wants it, therefor it is not coded.
b) Its a feature which we believe very few will ever use and the majority might just confuse it with fast forward.

so a) you can step up and do. b) is not based on what we want but what we believe the majority (outside the dev team and outside the forum, because this is where the majority actually is). You are welcome to prove us wrong by doing a) and see if your patch is used by many.

I like the possibility to speed up the playback in VLC player for some videos - e.g. some news talks are to slow for me.
Is it possible to tune the playback speed in XBMC for +-10%, so e.g. to 1.10x? Can I assign a key in the keymap.xml to it?

Search 'feature requests' been asked multiple times. Devs don't want to do it.

It is very disappointing that the developers do not follow the wishes of users in this request. The thread is here.

Thanks for the hint, now I found what I looked for (even if its not the answer I wished). I'll continue this topic there.

Goemon HTPC

Hi, I'll take part and proove you wrong because I'd also like to speedplay some video files. I fully agree with the dev team for movies, but class videos and the news report tolerate a little speedplay - so more time for good movies in perfect 1.0X speed

So please count me in as a user how desperately want this feature. (I am happy with XBMC and dont like to switch to other software)

Please add same-pitch sound when ff/rew as an option. It would be a godsend for video tutorials and lectures instead of having to use VLC and get up just to change the video.

Any news about this feature?

Movies at 9-13% faster (only increments available in vlc) are not noticeable, to anyone. A 3 hour godfather movie, over that course saves you 23 minutes.

For documentaries where its purely talking, and no action, I do up to 39% faster.
I assure you, all my co-workers laughed too, they then tried it, and said its the best thing since sliced bread. Your brain completely filters out the fact that its too fast, and it still seems "normal".

I understand that "none of the devs" want this feature, however if you start with that justification, making up reasons after that is quite simple indeed. "An insult to developers, director would be shocked, its not meant to be like that, the sky is blue, so we shouldn't do it"

Weather I'm sitting at my PC using VLC to do this, me sitting on my couch where there is XBMC, does not make it a "different scenario". If I can remember correctly this WAS a feature in the original on-the-xbox-XBMC.

There is a thread for suggestions. There is clearly interest in this feature. I'm not pushing you guys to do this, your minds are clearly made up. (but seriously, if a dev doesn't want the feature, then its not coming in?, you might as well close it to the public)

Anyways guys, love XBMC, its free, I donate, still have some "low sound output" issues", but overall it rocks.

And I'd like to vote for the increased playback speed as well.

I would also like to see this feature available.
It is not an abomination or insult to have some control over the playback speed of my media. Your brain can keep up just fine.

As it stands right now I like to watch media at a faster than normal rate to save time or especially to catch up on old content. I would rather donate money to someone else with the skill to accomplish the task. If I had time to learn python and how to code plugins for XBMC (if it is even possible via plugin) I probably wouldn't be watching media at 1.5x rate.

After I now have more experience with media players, I also want to add that this feature is CRUCIAL for basic playback, although I originally "only" requested it for the capability to watch video material faster.

If you watch for example BluRay- / TV-material with 23.976 fps (they call that 24p, as also 24 fps-video is called), but use a refresh-rate of your display which is not an odd multiple of that number (not all cards can sync to a multiple of that rate), you will get noticeable micro-stuttering, especially in scenes with camera movements across still imagery.
I was always wondering where that effect was coming from. Due to XBMC's incapability concerning faster playback and some other features, my HTPC currently runs Windows (sadly) with MPC / PotPlayer, so I can calibrate my colors, get good ASS/SSA-support and can scale the video on my dedicated GPU (Lanczos-algorithm, and can also use the Intel-GPU for decoding if I want). In those players, a filter called ReClock can be added which deals with the framerate-problem: It speeds up the audio so the video plays back at 24 fps (with pitch-correction, of course). Stuttering totally went away (combined with a refresh-rate of 48 Hz / 72 Hz of course, the VO I use with those players can switch automatically based on the video).

That filter can also reverse the effects of PAL-speedup and some other things. I feel that this is very crucial, as the effect of suddenly fluid playback was really astonishing. Just so you know, the machine is definitely fast enough to handle any nowadays material (i7 2600K) so it was definitely not caused by high load - if it would have been caused by that, it would not have vanished magically once I switched to the correct refresh-rate and activated ReClock.

I can still not grasp why XBMC does not want to become a high-quality-player, when scaletempo as a free library can deal with the audio-speed-up / speed-down just perfectly and is used in mplayer / VLC as well.

For now, I will stay with my Windows-setup with the mentioned free players. Not as comfortable as XBMC would have been, but I'm not missing out on quality.

EDIT: As a matter of fact, this is filed as a feature request for two years now:
http://trac.xbmc.org/ticket/9135
I don't think I should comment on that any more than I already did.