The VideoLAN Forums

Hello. I have installed the latest version of VLC 64-bits: "2.1.0 Rincewind". When I try to assign a keyboard, the left or right arrow, for the short skip forward or backward, doesn't work. I don't have any programs in the background that is using the keyboard. I'd like to assign the keyboard shortcuts as in Poplayer which I believe are easier and more intuitive, but I don't understand why VLC has problems with them.

A reinstall of the program should sort out the following issues if not try using the default short cuts see if they work as might be conflicting with other commands bond to that key

I have also tested with the VLC 32-bit version and the problem persists. I have deleted all the keyboard shortcuts and I only added those two without positive results. Is it because I use Windows 8.1? Please, help me.

I read this article on a website.

MAKING THE ARROW KEYS WORK IN VLC

One of my big flaws with the VLC media player is that you can’t use the arrow keys to skip backwards and forwards in a video. It turns out that this is because the left and right arrow keys are already configured to mean “navigate around a DVD menu” and you can’t configure a key twice. So, if you need to use VLC for something, and you want the arrow keys to work, go into the settings and set the DVD navigate options to something other than Left and Right. Then configure “jump forwards” and “jump backwards” to Right and Left, and then it’ll work. God knows why it has to be this way, but at least if you do that it works.

Why not this method works for me?

It would be better than later versions program assigned by default these keys to jump the video forward and backward as in most video players. Why VLC has to be different?

I am using the latest version of VLC on mac and also have issues with keyboard shortcuts:
The default hotkey to make playback faster is [command][=] and for slower is [command][-].
The thing is that on a German mac keyboard there is only a direct key for [-) so [command][-] works but the = sign is above the 0 key so you have to press [shift][0] to enter =
Thus I can not press [command][=] but only [command][shift][=].
Therefore faster can not be triggered on a German keyboard but only slower.
I went to Preferences > HotKeys and changed the HotKeys. This is a nice and promising UI. However, it took me a while to analyse and verify that it has absolutelty no effect on the VLC keybindings itself. When I change slower, faster, etc. and click "Save" still all the old default hotkeys are in place.

So to summarize: VLC HotKeys are buggy (at least on MacOS) and it is impossible to make playback faster with a German keyboard so you have to use the menu.

Sorry just noticed this is Windows only...