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How to Control the Video Player

Getting the Most Out of Your Viewing Experience

Sit back while I take you through the controls of the video player, most importantly the Quality Control, so you will get the clearest video experience possible.

Julia Viers
Russell Viers
January 4, 2022
While napping: 2 hours

Is Your Video Viewing Experience Sharp and Clear?

In this video, I show you the video player controls so you can get the best results possible as you're watching our episodes. If you would rather read about it, skip below the video for the article.

Is the Video Blurry?

I'm going to jump ahead to the video player control that is most important for controlling the quality of your video, and that's the, well, the Quality Control Menu.

If you look along the bottom of the video you'll see the many player controls we'll cover in this article, and all the way to the right is an icon that looks like a gear. If you click on the gear, a menu will pop up to control Quality and Speed.

Video Player Controller

By default, the Quality should be set on Auto. This allows the player to adjust to your current internet speed, lowering quality to buffer faster when things slow down.

Quality Control

Many things can affect your internet speed and lower the quality of the video.

The most obvious one is that you have bad internet. Depending on where you live and the service provided, you could have super fast or sluggishly slow. You may have fast service on paper, but be on a setup that acts like a party line where others in your area share the "pipe." In this type of scenario, you'll feel your internet running slower at peak times.

Other things that affect the speed of your internet are others on your network using it at the same time, multiple devices sharing the internet, and even other activities on your computer pulling data, which takes space away from what you need to watch the videos.

So if you aren't getting the full speed you want to watch our videos at the best quality, try ending any streaming activity on your devices (music, movies, news tickers, etc.) and asking others in the building to stop watching movies (or find a time when people aren't). If you use cloud storage services, like Dropbox, try pausing the sync on those while you watch, as that can really affect the internet speed.

If you KNOW you have slow internet, try changing the Auto to a lower setting that you can still enjoy, perhaps 720. What this does is allows the video to buffer faster and will have fewer (if any) pauses due to lack of data. If you start out on auto, your player is trying to send you LOTS of data and you may have stoppages. If you change to 720, more data comes down from the very beginning, hopefully avoiding any buffering problems.

Let's Go Back to the Beginning

If you look at the Video Player Control Bar along the bottom, starting from the left you'll see the

  • Play/Pause Button
  • Duration indicator
  • Chapter Markers
  • Volume Control
  • Quality/Speed Controls
  • Chapter List
  • AirPlay Share (Mac Only)
  • Full Screen Mode

Play/Pause Button

Guess what the Play/Pause Button does. Go ahead, guess. C'mon, I'll wait.

*tapping fingers on desk while waiting for you to guess what it does*

Play/Pause Button

Nope...it plays the video and/or pauses it. It's really that simple. Click on the triangle pointing to the right and it plays. Click on the sideways equal sign and it stops.

Before you press Play the first time, the duration time of the video is shown in a little popup at the start of the timeline.

The video won't start buffering until you hit Play and it will stop buffering if you Pause. So if you have extremely slow internet and the video isn't buffering fast enough, you might want to let it buffer then back your playhead up a bit hitting the left arrow on your keyboard a few times. You can also skip forward again by hitting your right arrow. Each time you hit a left or right arrow key you move the playhead five seconds.

Chapter Markers and Chapter List

We add Chapters to our videos to help you quickly navigate to the topic you want to see. These show above the Playbar as dots. If you hover your mouse over them you'll see the name of the Chapter and if you click your playhead will advance to that point.

Chapter Markers

To the far right of the playber, to the right of the Quality Control gear icon, there is an icon with three lines and if you click on it a Chapter List Menu will pop up, where you can click on a Chapter to move the playhead there.

Chapter List

Volume Control

To the left of the Quality Control gear icon you'll see some vertical lines that look like the bars on your cellular phone indicator. the one on the far left is the shortest and they get progressively taller as you move to the right. This is one way to control the volume of the video. You can also use the many controls available on your computer or device.

Volume Control

AirPlay Share (Mac only)

To the right of the Chapter List is the typical Mac share icon which allows you to send the video to another device you've set up. This could work with a projector, large screen TV, or something else.

Full Screen Mode

The last icon to the right has you a click away from viewing in Full Screen Mode. You can also hit "F" on your keyboard. This will fill your screen with the video and eliminates all of the other distractions on your display.

To exit Full Screen Mode, just hit "F" again, or your Escape Key.

Wrapping Up

This player is designed to be simple to use and adjust to internet speeds for the best possible user experience.

If you're still having problems, drop us a line using our Contact Form and we'll try to help you out.

Is Your Video Viewing Experience Sharp and Clear?

In this video, I show you the video player controls so you can get the best results possible as you're watching our episodes. If you would rather read about it, skip below the video for the article.

Is the Video Blurry?

I'm going to jump ahead to the video player control that is most important for controlling the quality of your video, and that's the, well, the Quality Control Menu.

If you look along the bottom of the video you'll see the many player controls we'll cover in this article, and all the way to the right is an icon that looks like a gear. If you click on the gear, a menu will pop up to control Quality and Speed.

Video Player Controller

By default, the Quality should be set on Auto. This allows the player to adjust to your current internet speed, lowering quality to buffer faster when things slow down.

Quality Control

Many things can affect your internet speed and lower the quality of the video.

The most obvious one is that you have bad internet. Depending on where you live and the service provided, you could have super fast or sluggishly slow. You may have fast service on paper, but be on a setup that acts like a party line where others in your area share the "pipe." In this type of scenario, you'll feel your internet running slower at peak times.

Other things that affect the speed of your internet are others on your network using it at the same time, multiple devices sharing the internet, and even other activities on your computer pulling data, which takes space away from what you need to watch the videos.

So if you aren't getting the full speed you want to watch our videos at the best quality, try ending any streaming activity on your devices (music, movies, news tickers, etc.) and asking others in the building to stop watching movies (or find a time when people aren't). If you use cloud storage services, like Dropbox, try pausing the sync on those while you watch, as that can really affect the internet speed.

If you KNOW you have slow internet, try changing the Auto to a lower setting that you can still enjoy, perhaps 720. What this does is allows the video to buffer faster and will have fewer (if any) pauses due to lack of data. If you start out on auto, your player is trying to send you LOTS of data and you may have stoppages. If you change to 720, more data comes down from the very beginning, hopefully avoiding any buffering problems.

Let's Go Back to the Beginning

If you look at the Video Player Control Bar along the bottom, starting from the left you'll see the

  • Play/Pause Button
  • Duration indicator
  • Chapter Markers
  • Volume Control
  • Quality/Speed Controls
  • Chapter List
  • AirPlay Share (Mac Only)
  • Full Screen Mode

Play/Pause Button

Guess what the Play/Pause Button does. Go ahead, guess. C'mon, I'll wait.

*tapping fingers on desk while waiting for you to guess what it does*

Play/Pause Button

Nope...it plays the video and/or pauses it. It's really that simple. Click on the triangle pointing to the right and it plays. Click on the sideways equal sign and it stops.

Before you press Play the first time, the duration time of the video is shown in a little popup at the start of the timeline.

The video won't start buffering until you hit Play and it will stop buffering if you Pause. So if you have extremely slow internet and the video isn't buffering fast enough, you might want to let it buffer then back your playhead up a bit hitting the left arrow on your keyboard a few times. You can also skip forward again by hitting your right arrow. Each time you hit a left or right arrow key you move the playhead five seconds.

Chapter Markers and Chapter List

We add Chapters to our videos to help you quickly navigate to the topic you want to see. These show above the Playbar as dots. If you hover your mouse over them you'll see the name of the Chapter and if you click your playhead will advance to that point.

Chapter Markers

To the far right of the playber, to the right of the Quality Control gear icon, there is an icon with three lines and if you click on it a Chapter List Menu will pop up, where you can click on a Chapter to move the playhead there.

Chapter List

Volume Control

To the left of the Quality Control gear icon you'll see some vertical lines that look like the bars on your cellular phone indicator. the one on the far left is the shortest and they get progressively taller as you move to the right. This is one way to control the volume of the video. You can also use the many controls available on your computer or device.

Volume Control

AirPlay Share (Mac only)

To the right of the Chapter List is the typical Mac share icon which allows you to send the video to another device you've set up. This could work with a projector, large screen TV, or something else.

Full Screen Mode

The last icon to the right has you a click away from viewing in Full Screen Mode. You can also hit "F" on your keyboard. This will fill your screen with the video and eliminates all of the other distractions on your display.

To exit Full Screen Mode, just hit "F" again, or your Escape Key.

Wrapping Up

This player is designed to be simple to use and adjust to internet speeds for the best possible user experience.

If you're still having problems, drop us a line using our Contact Form and we'll try to help you out.

Author

Russell Viers

Third Chair Trumpet

I'm just a guy who was lucky to have made MANY mistakes creating files since 1987...and learning from those mistakes. Always trying to find a better way, I've learned the techniques you see in these videos on real projects over 35 years (plus many more doing paste-up).

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