There are two types of people you’re likely to find on Netflix. Now, the one is in a rush, constantly having stuff on the go and running from meeting to meeting. They’re a fan of plenty of series and movies though, just struggling to fit in all those super long Netflix Originals. The other type of person, they treat their media like a meal, consuming every morsel with delicate attention, savouring every line and shot. Of course, this is a severe over-simplification of Netflix users but just go with me here because a new playback speed feature feels almost laser focused on these chaps.

Currently only available for the phone and tablet versions of Netflix, users will now be able to set the speed their shows are streamed at, being able to speed up shows by 1.25x and 1.5x or slow down some of the more visually complicated scenes by 0.5x or 0.75x. This doesn’t just apply to streaming however, as the feature also works with downloaded shows because it would be pretty stupid if it didn’t.

The feature is launching in the United States tomorrow with a global roll out expected to gradually take place over the next few weeks. A few creatives have slammed the idea, stating that Netflix should not offer users the ability to alter the presentation of the art they’re consuming. Which is fair, if directors and producers thought something looked better slowed down or sped up, they would have done so during production.

Still, at the end of the day the only thing that matters is if users will use the feature. Netflix seems pretty confident that it’s a sought after enough but will still require users to opt in to it every time they want to use it. That means that you can’t set the sped up or the slow down speeds as a default and will have to manually set it every time you want to use it.

(Source: The Verge)