Whether you’re fond of short absurdist comedy series or sprawling auteur-driven epics, Netflix’s original works have earned plenty of acclaim in recent years, and a fair share of viewers as well. But a new report indicates that the company might be adding a new feature to their streaming platform: letting viewers adjust the playback speed of whatever they’re watching.
A new report from Dark Horizons has the details: “Netflix is reportedly testing out variable playback speed of its content, allowing viewers to watch film and TV titles at anywhere from 50% speed to 150% speed.” According to the report, some users with Netflix installed on their Android devices have seen this feature enabled.
Endgadget’s report has even more specifics:
When watching content on Netflix, some Android users now have a Speed option on the video playback menu, next to the Audio & Subtitles menu. In the Speed menu, there are options to reduce the speed to 0.5x or 0.75x, an option to set playback to normal (1x speed), or options to set the speed to 1.25x or 1.5x.
Given the recent debate over the ill effects of motion smoothing on watching movies at home, it’s not clear if this will inspire a host of PSAs from prominent filmmakers asking viewers to please, please not speed up or slow down your films of choice.
It’s unclear what the finalized version of this feature looks like, or if this will get past the experimental stage. But if it does, just wait for some enterprising video artist to pull off their own homage to Douglas Gordon’s installation 24 Hour Psycho, but with one of Netflix’s original offerings. 24 Hour Big Mouth, anyone?
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