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Different Ways to Rotate Video

How many times have you whipped out your smartphone to record something but forgotten to pay attention to whether you're recording in landscape or portrait? When you're back at home and watching your video, it will be frustrating if you've not recorded your video in the best orientation. In such case, below we will share different ways to help you rotate video easily.

Rotate Video with Windows Movie Maker

If you need the video to be upright, you can use Windows Movie Maker to rotate it to the right direction and save it that way.  This is the best way to permanently rotate the video to a proper orientation.

How to Rotate Video:

Step 1: Open Windows Movie Maker. Drag and drop your video into the program or use the “Add videos and photos” option in the Home toolbar.

Step 2: Once added, scroll to the right to the Editing options within the Home tab.

Step 3: Click on “Rotate left” or “Rotate right” depending on the original orientation of your video.

rotating-video-left-or-right-in-wmm

Step 4: When you've rotated your video properly, click on the “File Icon” in the top right-hand corner of Windows Movie Maker. Now, click “Save movie".

You now have a permanently rotated video to watch, share or further edit as you see fit.

Rotate Video with VLC Media Player

Using VLC is much more complicated. Now just follow the steps below to have your video rotated.

Step 1. Open your video file by going to Media > Open File… and browsing for your file. Or, by just dragging and dropping your video onto the VLC player.

Step 2. Choose "Tools" from the Menu bar and select "Effects and Filters'.

Step 3. Click the "Video Effects" tab, then click the "Geometry" tab. Place a checkmark in the "Transform" checkbox and choose your degrees of rotation.

Step 4. Hit "Close" when you're ready, and you'll see your newly-altered video in the player's main window. 

Editor's Note:

To save the changes to make them permanent, you need to go to Tools > Preferences and choose All under Show Settings in the bottom right-hand corner. Then scroll down to Stream Output > Sout Streaming. In the panel on the right, choose Rotate Video Filter and click Save. Next, go to Media > Convert / Save and use the Add button to select the original file. Finally, choose Convert from the drop-down box in the bottom right-hand corner, select the save location in the Destination box, and click Start.

Jump To: How to Use VLC as A Video Editor?

Rotate Video Files in FFmpeg

FFmpeg is one of the most famous multimedia frameworks wich is widely used for processeing videos. You can also use FFmpeg and the commandline to rotate video files:

The command for rotating a video 90 degrees clockwise is: ffmpeg -i in.mov -vf "transpose=1" out.mov

The Transpose values are as follows:

0 = 90CounterCLockwise and Vertical Flip (default)

1 = 90Clockwise

2 = 90CounterClockwise

3 = 90Clockwise and Vertical Flip

To vertically flip the video, use the "vflip" filter. To horizontally flip, use "hflip".

Jump To: FFmpeg vs Pavtube Video Converter, Which One is Right For You?

Rotate Video Files in HandBrake

Handbrake makes it possible to rotate MP4 videos and other files. Here is a detailed guide about how to use Handbrake to rotate video clockwise/counterclockwise by 90, 180, and 270 degrees to avoid upside down video. 

Step 1: Open Handbrake. Select a video you want to rotate in Handbrake by tapping "Source".
Step 2: Go to "Browse" -> "Destination" to save the rotated video in Handbrake. 
Step 3: Go to "Video" -> "Extra Options" Window and input the keywords as below to rotate videos with Handbrake.

Detailed commands:

a. If you want an x flip in Handbrake, please enter the command ", --rotate=1" into the "Extra Options" Window.

b. If you want a y flip in Handbrake, please enter the command ", --rotate=2" into the "Extra Options" Window.

c. To turn video upside down or rotate video 180 degrees in Handbrake, put the command ", --rotate=3" into the "Extra Options" Window. This is also the default setting in Handbrake rotating video documentation. 

d. If you want to use Handbrake rotate a video in 90 degrees clockwise, put the command ", --rotate=4" into the "Extra Options" Window.

e. To do a 90 degrees rotate plus y flip, put the command ", --rotate=5" into the "Extra Options" Window.

f. To do a 270 degrees rotate plus y flip, put the command ", --rotate=6" into the "Extra Options" Window.

g. To rotate video 90 degree anti-clockwise or process 270 degrees rotate in Handbrake, put the command ", --rotate=7" into the "Extra Options" Window.

Jump To: How to Flip or Rotate Videos using Handbrake?

Best Tool to Rotate Video to the Right Angle You Want

If you find yourself having to rotate numerous video files, I highly recommend the Pavtube Video Converter (Review) as the first choice because this video rotator supports to batch rotate video files. With a built-in video editor, you can rotate the video to any angles you want. For example: you can rotate video with 180°, anticlockwise 90°, clockwise 90°, up and down, etc.

This is not even the end of story. Once your video is rotated, you are also allowed to dress up it by your own need, you can add SRT/ SSA/ ASS subtitle to video, add new music to video, add watermark to video, or even adjust the video background, etc.

If you are running mac OS computer, just download Pavtube Video Converter for Mac (macOS High Sierra supported) to rotate video to the right angle you want.

Jump To: Best Free Video Editor Without Watermark

4 Steps to Rotate Video:

Step 1: Click "File" > "Add video/audio" button to import source video files. You also can directly drag and drop the files you want to rotate to the software.

Step 2: Click “Format” bar, from its drop-down list, select one of your device playable file formats, such as “H.264 HD Video(*.mp4)” under “HD Video” main category. If you don’t want to change your video formats, you can ignore this step.

Step 3: Select an item you want to rotate to activate the "Edit" menu . Then click the “Edit” icon on the tool bar of main interface to open “Video Editor” Window, you can rotate the video by the following intriuction:

Rrotate video to left ot the right

Rotate video up and down

anticlockwise 90°Rotate video with anticlockwise 90°

Rotate video with clockwise 90°

You can move all the video effect and go back to the original video

rotate youtube video

Step 4: Then you can click "Convert" to start to rotate video files. When the process ends, just open the output folder to locate the video.

Which way do you choose? Actually they are all easy to do, after the video rotation, you can get a video in the right orientation. I believe your vidoe will be more attractive.

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