There is a frame-by-frame playback on VLC (E key or view > advanced controls), which is very useful; but there is no way to use it backwards.
This is a long-time requested feature (at least since 2015); and I was wondering if it was part of VLC 3.0.
Does anyone know if this can be done?
The VLC help says :
Unfortunately, VLC doesn’t support frame-stepping backwards; it’s only possible to move forward.
Other players may have a limited support for backward playing. This would be somewhat slow, because video files are usually constructed with the occasional full frame, while in-between frames only contain the difference.
Backward stepping would involve going back to the last full frame and then forward to the requested frame.
I found two posts that relate to your request :
These posts contain links to various players that are said to be able to step backward, but VLC is not one of them. You will need to test and see.
Because product recommendations are not allowed on our site, I cannot list these players here.
MPV can easily move one frame forwards or backwards with , & .. It is FOSS and available for Windows, Linux and MacOS. https://mpv.io/
Using a wrapper for VLC named Vlc.DotNet, I was able to write my own video player with the buttons and controls displayed just how I like it.
It calls the frame forward function, but I wrote my own method in my program to step backwards in the position in the video approximately one frame based on the number of frames per second of the media that is playing.
It does not work all the time. Sometimes, when you click the back frame button, nothing happens in the video. I am guessing that it has to do with Mokubai's comment above. BUT, it works most of the time, if you are trying to get to a particular frame.
If I may brag a little, I have buttons for jumping forward and backwards a configurable number of seconds. I have enhanced rate of playback controls that let you halve or double your speed as well as finer controls that can change the rate by a small amount and a numeric box to enter the rate you want. In addition, I have an enhanced time slider that lets you issue keyboard sequences to hop to any spot in the video by percentage by hitting 1-9 (10%-90%). I just like to make it how I like it!
