Interesting! I do the same with video lectures from Coursera. For example, Odersky's lectures may be interesting, but boy is he a slow speaker. I simply cannot stand his -- and to be fair, most -- lectures unless I play them at 2X speed.

And still, I'd rather read the PDF slides.

Video isn't a particularly good way of conveying formal information. Text with graphics is way better.

Video is a great way to convey formal information - when that info needs the moving visuals aspect to be clearly presented.

Videos of people just speaking text is terrible and the wrong tool for the job.

Well, the best way to accomplish this would be include an animation in the material that's mostly in the written form.

Like this: http://acko.net/blog/how-to-fold-a-julia-fractal/

Video excels in doing two things... 1) conveying emotion and 2) telling stories that paint pictures.

There's also this extension [1] by Ilya Grigorik that focuses on just speed controls if you want a leaner plugin.

1. https://github.com/igrigorik/videospeed

I never tried it at 2x speed. I will give it a try when I find an appropriate vid. Thanks to those of you who responded to my post, it gave me some good info.