Here’s a simple time saving trick for people who like to watch audio or video podcasts on their computer. It comes handy in the following two situations:

Case A: You are in a hurry but would like to quickly listen to all the MP3 podcast shows that you just downloaded via iTunes.

Case B: You have plenty of time at your disposal but don’t have the patience to listen to talk-shows or podcast interviews that are either too long or too slow.

OK, the idea is that you increase the playback speed of audio or video file in your media player by a factor of 1.2 - 1.4. The audio quality is not degraded and contrary to what you may thing, the voice won’t sound like that of a robot.

To increase the speed of playback, load the file in Quicktime player, press Ctrl+K and drag the “playback speed” slider to the right.

If you are watch podcasts inside Windows Media Player, go to View -> Enhancements -> Play Speed Settings. Now you can either drag the slider or pick the “Fast” setting directly.

You may however have to experiment a bit to come up with the right speed factor for different podcasts. This trick is courtesy Rule the Web available for reading here.

Related: Stuff Extra Music in your iPod