Dynamic Timeline Scrubber

From PDI

When playing an MP3 or other audio or video file, the timeline should automatically adjust its units and sensitivity based on the length of the content. For instance, when playing back a three-minute song, going back or forward 10 or 20 pixels might only represent a few seconds. But when playing a 3 hour podcast or audio book section, those same 10 or 20 pixels might represent 20 minutes. If you just want to hear the last sentence again, it's impossible to go back a short period of time using the same timeline (scrubber) that is used for relatively short pieces of media. What is needed is a way to dynamically adjust the UI for pieces of media of varying length.

The timeline and scrubber should dynamically adjust its sensitivity and maybe even entire layout for longer pieces. Maybe when you tap and hold, you get a magnifying glass (or other finer-grained UI) that allows you move the playhead in smaller increments. Or perhaps shortcut buttons appear to automatically jump back 15 seconds or so (which wouldn't typically be useful when playing back a song).

If the software were intelligent enough, it could even guess where the sentence began and allow listeners to jump back to the beginning of the sentence (or to generally navigate forward or backward by sentence). Additionally, MP3s or other audio or video formats could contain metadata embedded in them to tell devices where sentences, paragraphs, sections, etc. begin and end.