Playback Speed Control Slider doesn't match hot keys

[Competern]

Hi,
I'm a newbie here so apologies if this is not the best place to post these comments.

I just updated to VLC Media Player V 2.0.1 and I was delighted to find the new Playback Speed control slider. That was just the feature I wanted to use. Thanks VLC, it works well.

However, the slider reports speeds of -34x up to 34x, whereas in fact the speeds are most probably 0.3333 to 3.3333. I was using a Mac Book Pro running OSX 10.6, but I don't think that is relevant.

The hot-key faster and slower controls are great too: and report speeds of 0.02 speed to 64x, but, of course the audio only works over the 0.34 to 3.4 speed range. The speed display is only transient, but it would be better, I think, if there was an option to permanently display any non-normal speed setting currently active.

So the display of slider setting speed is misleading and probably should show from 0.33x to 3.3x, rather than -34x to 34x.

I'm not keen on speed designations such as 0.02 etc. I suspect that 0.02 may be 1/64 speed. So wouldn't that be a better designation? Hmmm: but from 1/10 speed to 1.0 speed the decimal speed notation is probably better, while at slower speeds a fractional designation may be better - depends on how the speeds are actually generated I suppose.

Why not show each click of the slider. That is, I'm guessing that it is not infinitely variable, but probably has discrete steps, so the graphics and the labelling would be more helpful if they show the actual target speed. Whatever the case, logarithmic steps most corresponds to our perception: hence target speeds such as the E12 Standard series of resistor values would be good target steps. I.e.:
0.33, 0.39, 0.47, 0.56, 0.68, 0.82, 1.0, 1.2, 1.5, 1.8, 2.2, 2.7, 3.3.
Better still would be the E24 series at least from 0.51 to 2.0 as this is far more likely to be the range of popular slider settings. That is:
0.51, 0.56, 0.62, 0.68, 0.75, 0.82, 0.91, 1.0, 1.1, 1.2, 1.3. 1.5, 1.6, 1.8, 2.0. (More steps but finer control over a narrower range).

Best of all may be to use the E12 settings of from 0.33 to 3.3 but add in 0.75, 0.91, 1.1 and 1.3 to give finer control around 1.0.
Such settings would be invaluable to help students learning a language or learning something technical that is a new concept to them - and after mastering the language or topic they can play it back faster for review or cueing. But for such use, the critical speeds are probably from 0.68 to 1.5 so that is why the extra values around 1.0 would be useful.

In this regard, it would be very helpful to have a control panel that includes a back-up ability and a speed control so that a student can back-up, and re-play at a slower speed without having to be expert in accessing hidden controls or knowing hot-key assignments.

Note that E12 and E24 standard series are rather erratic (1.1, 1.2, 1.3, 1.5, 1.6) so E48/2 is preferable as it uses 3-digit accuracy for a smoother 24 logarithmic steps per decade. It all depends on how your software actually achieves each step.
Hence 0.316, 0.348, 0.383, 0.422, 0.464, 0.511, 0.562, 0.619, 0.681, 0.750, 0.825, 0.909, 1.00, 1.10, 1.21, 1.33, 1.47, 1.62, 1.78, 1.96, 2.05, 2.26 are better target values. There is a reason why logarithmic steps work best - E48 logarithmic steps are quite close to the 12-note/octave musical scale based on the 12th root of 2.

[Jean-Baptiste Kempf]

What OS?

[Competern]

What OS?

Mac Operating System X version 10.6 is "Snow Leopard" i.e. not the latest which is 10.7.3, probably not relevant but info for you just in case.

[Competern]

Forgot to tick Notify me box, so just did so

[Jean-Baptiste Kempf]

The first one is probably a bug.

[fkuehne]

Hello,

I just filed ticket 6429 on this matter.

Thanks for the report!

[nkoriyama]

I already filled the same.
https://trac.videolan.org/vlc/ticket/5869

[nkoriyama]

This issue will be fixed on the Nightly Build of VLC. (vlc-2.0.0-x86_64-20120321-XXXX.zip)

[ballybrit]

Where is speed control slider? I am looking for that on my VLC interface.

[nkoriyama]

Menu Playback -> Playback speed

[AnonyMouse]

Menu Playback -> Playback speed

The key word was "slider". Referring to a menu item a couple of levels deep doesn't cut it.

The answer is that you have to go into Tools --> Customize Interface and add the slower/faster buttons to the interface yourself.

[fkuehne]

@AnonyMouse: you are referring to the Qt4 interface for Windows or Linux. There is no "Tools" menu on the Mac to start with. Additionally, the playback slider is a first level menu item here.