Hey Esther, actually this is really good info. The real reason why I
am interested is I use Mplayer to slow music down that I am working
on. This is nice because I can then hear things I can't quite catch at
regular speed. I think for my purposes I might try Quicktime. I for
some reason did not realize it could be used this way. Well lets just
say that it is quite possible the issue was more being able to move
back through the file with just a simple press of the arrow keys. I'm
going to check all this out and again thanks.
Scott Howell
[email protected]
On Jan 24, 2009, at 9:28 AM, Esther wrote:
Hi Scott,
In order to slow down playing of a track in iTunes, you use a value
in the AppleScript that's less than 1.0 -- for example, using 0.5
will play a track at half the speed. Here's a summary of how this
works.
Everett asked: Can you adjust the rate that an MP3 file plays in
iTunes?
You can use an AppleScript that will allow you to change the
playback speed of your selected track in iTunes, but iTunes itself
does not natively support changing the playback rate of its audio or
video tracks. iTunes employs a subset of the functions of QuickTime
Player for basic audio/video playback and encoding, with some added
capabilities that are specific to iTunes -- such as tracking
bookmarks that record your last played position in audio books and
podcasts, and the support for Audible.com audiobooks with DRM.
So the two AppleScripts that Louie posted transfer the information
about the selected track and the time currently at the playhead
between iTunes and QuickTime Player. In the first case when you
launch the AppleScript, which is named "Play this song at 1.5x" on
my Mac, playback in iTunes is paused, and QuickTime Player is
launched for the same track with the start time moved to the time at
which iTunes was paused. When you launch the second AppleScript,
which is named "Play this song a 1x in iTunes again" on my Mac,
QuickTime Player is paused, and the time at the playhead is shifted
back to the track in iTunes, which starts playing again.
When you use QuickTime Player and want to play tracks faster or
slower (without using AppleScripts) you can bring up the A/V window
from the Window menu on the menu bar and navigate to the playback
speed control. Interact with the slider and VO-right or left to
adjust the speed. Use the shift key in combination for finer
adjustment steps. You can also adjust volume, balance, bass, treble,
and pitch with the A/V window controls. The main QuickTime Player
window has controls that tell you the time at the playhead, and let
you interact and adjust the time. There's also a volume slider and
buttons for play, rewind, fast forward, and moving to the beginning
and end of tracks.
If you want to read more about these AppleScripts, you can read my
list archive post, which points to their source link at Mac OS X
Hints, and also gives instructions for how to save them:
http://www.mail-archive.com/[email protected]/msg11002.html
To save the AppleScripts, you'll need to go to Applications (Command-
Shift-A in finder) and open the Script Editor that's in the
AppleScript folder. Then copy and paste each of these into the
Script Editor as described in more detail in the archived post. That
post was about podcasts in iTunes, and these scripts keep track of
the your place, so they can be used with podcasts. If you're simply
interested in speeding up playback without bookmarks, you can
download an AppleScript called "Podfast" from:
http://www.tunequest.org/speeding-up-podcasts-listen-to-more-faster-part-1/20070130/
It runs a dialog box to ask you what speed you want. I don't like
it as much because it opens extraneous windows and doesn't transfer
the time, so podcasts will always start to play from the beginning.
One warning is that the transfer back and forth between QuickTime
and your Selected track in iTunes may not be automatic if you browse
around in iTunes and shift your selection while you're listening,
but it's fine if you don't shift your selection. Tiger seemed to be
more robust to that than Leopard. And the speed up works in video
as well as audio, but the scripts will not work on Audible files
because their DRM doesn't allow them to be played in QuickTime.
HTH
Cheers,
Esther
On Jan 24, 2009, at 2:47 AM, Scott Howell wrote:
Hi, I have been meaning to ask if this script was to speed up or
slow down a track? Seems to me it would be to speed up the track
and if that is the case, would you use a minus symbol in front of
the 1.5 to slow it down?
tnx
Scott Howell
[email protected]
On Jan 19, 2009, at 1:04 AM, louie wrote:
tell application "iTunes"
pause
set my_track to location of current track
set my_seconds to player position
end tell
tell application "QuickTime Player"
open my_track
set my_movie to first movie
set ts to time scale of my_movie
set current time of my_movie to my_seconds * ts
set rate of my_movie to 1.5 -- starts playing
end tell
And here's the AppleScript to resume at normal speed in iTunes:
(* Resume normal speed in iTunes after using
Play this song at 1.5x
*)
tell application "iTunes"
set my_track to location of current track
end tell
tell application "QuickTime Player"
set my_movie to first movie
set ts to time scale of my_movie
set my_seconds to (current time of my_movie) / ts
close my_movie
end tell
tell application "iTunes"
set player position to my_seconds
play
end tell
louie
[email protected]
