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 ?
Best Answer
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.