I have several video-files in *.avi format. And here is a problem requiring a solution. Depending on the movie, I wish to play it forward, using keyboard, skipping user-defined amount of frames. For example, in QuickTime there is a possibility to play a movie forward and back frame-by-frame using right and left arrows on a keyboard respectively. I would like, in particular, to have a possibility to use "up" and "down" arrows to skip for example 30 frames forward and backward. And I would like to have the possibility to define the number of frames I would like to skip.
So the best simple solution for me would be just pointing out at a player that has this feature. But any input is welcome.
There is a laundry-list of players with various levels of support for frame-stepping in this post. It is mostly about single frame forth and back though.
However, a plugin Jump to time for VLC gets mentioned (at that time still called 'Previous frame'), with a link to this post. The picture there is very promising while the discussion seems outdated given how much more the current version can do.
The page of the extension, linked above, states
Jump to time (Previous frame) is VLC Extension that can:
- jump to a desired time in a played media;
- jump forward/backward by a desired time length;
- split-second jumps imitating previous/next frame;*
- show actual playback time with milliseconds;
- use time longer than 24 hours;
- repeat a desired scene again and again (A-loop);
- convert time.
It cannot make a cup of coffee for you :-)
The one-frame jumps apparently aren't super accurate but that may not affect your need.
This seems to come very close to the stated purpose of analysis. I don't know whether it'll be as simple as 'up-down' with adjustable frame-step, but it may well be usable enough.
Another option certainly worth looking into is VirtualDub which can do virtually anything with a stream. I'd be surprised if it weren't possible to use it for described analysis at least to some extent.
Both VLC and VirtualDub are well known and respected tools that have been around for a long while.
Finally, if you are up to some programming, this post is about how to accomplish customizable jumps using HTML and Javascript.