We’ve all been forced to sit through boring, long-winded training videos that seem to drag on forever. Don’t you want to scream at the slow-speaking narrator in an online training video to hurry up and make their point?
I don’t know about you, but I like to learn things fast. I might not be the smartest person out there, but I can learn faster than most people – maybe it’s my 20+ years of working with eLearning platforms. And if you’re reading this right now, chances are you feel the the same way.
I got some tips from Reddit on how to watch training videos, virtual conferences, online courses, and webinars faster, and that lead me to some cool hacks that I will explain. These tricks can even be used to speed up videos on streaming services like Netflix, Amazon Prime, YouTube, or anywhere else.
Here’s a quick overview of what I will cover in this article, if you want to skip ahead to the sections that most interest you:
- How Slow Videos Negatively Affect Learning
- The Advantages of Speeding Up and Skipping Through Videos
- The Simplicity of Speeding Up on Some Websites
- The Problem of “Chipmunk Voice”
- How to Speed Up and Skip Through Downloaded Videos
- How to Use Coding, Apps, or Plugins to Speed Up and Skip Through Videos
- Extra: Popular Video Players that Let You Speed Up The Video
How Slow Videos Negatively Affect Learning
Many videos are so slow-paced that viewers get bored. The viewers are easily distracted and are really just wasting time watching training videos while getting nothing out of it. The video may play all the way through, and they do not learn the content because they were not engaged.
A video with a droning, monotonous narration can put students to sleep. This is something to remember if you’re ever putting together your own videos for your training programs (check out our guide to the best video presentation software for doing this).
Remember, we’re living in the age of TikTok and Instagram, where people are used to quick, short, engaging videos. That’s not to say that your training video content needs to be the length of a TikTok, but you do have to remember that attention spans are shrinking and it’s harder than ever to keep viewers engaged for long periods of time.
Luckily, there are technology solutions that are easy to use to speed things up and save time watching videos.
The Advantages of Speeding Up and Skipping Through Videos
The one thing that a person’s most limited resource is time. Speeding up training videos increases retention because watching the faster video speed requires more focus.
Faster material is easier to concentrate on because a viewer feels more like he or she has to pay attention or they might miss something. If they do miss something, it is easy to go back to replay any part. This results in better retention overall from your online videos.
It’s possible to save about 30% of the time watching training videos while better comprehending the material.
That’s right, watching an hour video will only take 40 minutes. Thus, you can create 20 minutes of free time for every hour of video you previously watched at normal speed.
One of the best uses of these methods is to get through any mandatory video training as fast as possible to be able to take the quizzes and finish more quickly.
I used this method when I watched the training videos for how to use a document camera with Google Meet that I wrote about in this article.
The Simplicity of Speeding Up on Some Websites
Video streaming services and popular websites allow the training video playback to be adjusted. You will find the playback speed adjustment on YouTube by clicking on the tools icon at the bottom right screen of a playing video window.
YouTube allows the video playback speed to be adjusted increments of 1.25, 1.5, 1.75, and 2.0 to make it go faster and 0.75, 0.5, and 0.25 to make the video play slower.
The Problem of “Chipmunk Voice”
If you speed up the video, you may also speed up the audio, resulting in the voices sounding like a chipmunk. One solution for this problem I have found works well is a paid software program (with a free 7-day trial) called Enounce MySpeed.
The MySpeed tool can be used on websites with video playback without any built-in speed adjustment. MySpeed does not make a chipmunk sound for the voices. It just speeds up everything.
It also has a nice feature that shows how much time you saved from speeding up the videos you watched. For example, I ran it for about six months, and it showed that I saved over 100 hours watching training materials and other online videos.
This was helpful when in this article I reviewed the video presentations in the courses for those seeking a masters in instructional design.
How to Speed Up and Skip Through Downloaded Videos
Before you can speed up a pre-recorded webinar, first, you have to know how to download a webinar using a hack. Webinars may expire, and it is helpful to download a copy of the online video for personal use to watch it later or at a faster speed.
In this video, produced by KamuGenius, if the webinar was made using the Webinarjam system, you can see the steps to take to find the webinar file and download it,
Once you get the webinar downloaded, then you can speed things up.
Here is another way to do this hack using Brave, a browser that works like Chrome, but you are paid to use it. He uses the plug-in called Video Download Helper.
This method works with Webinarjam and some other webinar systems.
How to Use Coding, Apps, or Plugins to Speed Up and Skip Through Videos
There are many ways to speed up a video and even automatically fast forward a video that won’t let you with their regular video controls.
Coding
If you are comfortable using coding, you can run the developer tools of YouTube and find the video, then run it using JavaScript in the console by using this method.
Apps
Here are some free smartphone apps you can use to edit videos. You can skip the boring parts, speed up the playback, and fast forward video easily to watch at your own pace. You can download them for Android devices at Google Play or for iOS devices at the Apple App Store.
For Android and iOS devices:
- FilmoraGo
- Vlogit
- Quik
- Vizmato
- KineMaster
For iOS devices only:
- Slow Fast Slow
- SpeedPro Slow
- iMovie
Plug-Ins
For Chrome and Firefox users, in this video produced by Ryan Moran, you will see him show you how to get an extension called Video Speed Controller to speed up video playback of pre-recorded video.
You can use this hack for webinars that are pre-recorded and also for videos on YouTube.
Another Chrome plug-in to consider is SpeedUp. There are so many ways to do this, just search for “speed up video playback” to find a solution that fits your circumstances.
Extra: Popular Video Players that Let You Speed Up The Video
As a PC user, here’s a hack I’ve found especially useful. To speed up a video, you are watching on a PC using Window Media Player, you can hit CTRL+SHIFT+G while the video is playing. This shortcut key makes the video play about 1.5 times the normal speed.
Using the popular VLC Media Player, the shortcut key used to speed up the video is simply to hit the plus key. Hit it once to speed up the video a little and twice to speed it up more.
In Quicktime, you can use CTRL+K and then set the playback speed to the speed you desire. However, many people prefer to use 1.5 to make the video playback faster and still be watchable.
Useful Resources
- Edit video playback speed on iPhone
- 50 shortcuts for Windows Media Player 11
- Adjust video speed in iMovie on iPhone
- Build a custom HTML5 video player
Conclusion
Once you start to enjoy the benefits of watching videos at faster speeds, you will understand the psychological benefits of this process. If you make training videos, you can keep an audience’s attention more focused by teaching them how to save time.
If you are interested in learning more about how does virtual learning work to engage students, read my article here. In the meantime, you can have your viewers more engaged with the material if you simply suggest they speed things up while watching your training videos.
Have any questions about how to skip through online training videos and fast forward videos that won’t let you? Comment below for help.