I'm running VLC 2.0.5 on Mac OS X 10.6.8.
I have a .mpg video paused, and I would like to know the frame number for this moment in the video. Is there a way to reveal that in VLC?
P.S. I scrubbed back and forth through the video to reach the point it is currently paused at.
I wanted to do the same but I couldn't find a way to do it with VLC.
But, according to this, you can use the drawtext filter in ffmpeg to overlay the frame number to the video permanently. So if you watch it on a player of your choice, you can always see the frame number.
For example:
ffmpeg -i video.mov \
-vf "drawtext=fontfile=Arial.ttf: text=%{n}: x=(w-tw)/2: y=h-(2*lh): fontcolor=white: box=1: boxcolor=0x00000099" \
output.mov
Apple's Quicktime Player 7 (free download @http://support.apple.com/kb/DL923) has a dead-easy way to view frames; all you have to do is click the time in the bottom left corner and select "frames". (It also supports frame-by-frame stepping with the arrow keys.) Such a pity the feature was removed in QTX, the one that ships with OSX 10.6.8. Dont worry, though, you can install then both and they won't interfere with each other.
I don't have an OS X version, but it should be similar to the other versions. On Windows select Tools->Media Information. From the window that opens select the "Statistics" tab. Under the video section you'll see the statistics for displayed and lost frames. The frame # should be those two numbers added together.
With VLC 2 or 3 on OS X, one can estimate the frame number as follows:
A. ADDON: Install Jump to time Previous Frame via the macOS menu VLC > Addons Manager or the Ubuntu menu Tools > Plugins and extensions > Addons Manager tab > Extensions. In VLC 3, click the "Find more addons online" button. The online install page is here. Restart VLC. Use VLC > Extensions > Jump to time (Previous frame) [Get time >>] button to show the HH:MM:SS,mmm lapse time.
B. CALCULATE/ESTIMATE: Convert HH:MM:SS,mmm to total lapsed seconds SS.mmm. Then total_lapsed_seconds * frame_rate_per_second = frame number.
Note: Jump To Time version 3 extension may need to be manually installed. At this time (2023.02.23) the Addons Manager is installing version 2.1.
C. TIME: Use the "Time v3.2 (intf)" VLC Extension to display the running time _,mmm on the screen in a playing video. A [Efps] format option provides a elapsed time * fps estimate. The fps value needs to be supplied in the format, e.g. [E25]
This is not exactly an answer to the OP's question, but since I tried all the above methods and found them only partially suitable for my purposes, I now use LosslessCut.app, which can display the frame number and natively allows frame-by-frame jumping back and forth, along with many other interesting features.
