How to see the current playback speed in VLC?
Solution 1:
On the Mac version of VLC, to see the playback speed, you have to click the Playback menu. It won't be shown on the default window.
Solution 2:
You can also setup the OnScreenDisplay which will display playback speed changes, step forwards, step backwards and other changes during playback.
Go to VLC -> Preferences -> Subtitles/OSD -> Enable OSD.
Save settings and quit the vlc app so settings get applied.