Video converter that can rotate image?

[whisper]

I record a lot of videos on my iPhone 4S, and sometimes I forget about proper orientation and end up recording "upside down" or vertically. I am looking for a utility that can covert the .mov files to .mp4 with the ability to rotate the orientation during the conversion process. I frequently use Handbrake but I've found it lacks this feature. Many of the files I've converted will display upside down or sideways due to the various orientations allowed during recording on the iPhone.

Interestingly, the original .mov files will display correctly when played back on iPhone, iTunes or streamed to Apple TV, but the converted .mp4 files seem to lose their sense of orientation (so to speak).

I like to convert to .mp4 for WiFi steaming due to the much smaller file size. I can usually achieve 60-70% reduced file size after conversion to .mp4 using Handbrake, but the orientation remains an issue. If anyone knows of another tool that can handle this I would love to hear. Thanks

 

[Snowknight26]

Interestingly, the original .mov files will display correctly when played back on iPhone, iTunes or streamed to Apple TV, but the converted .mp4 files seem to lose their sense of orientation (so to speak).

Depending what's being done when going from MOV to MP4, the rotation EXIF metadata can potentially be lost. Even if it's kept, there's no guarantee that the software/device used to play the video back even supports rotating the video.

If you aren't intimidated by command line programs, ffmpeg can do exactly what you want.

ffmpeg -i input.mov -vf "transpose=1" output.mp4

This basic command line will transpose the video 90° clockwise (other directions are possible) and reencode it to H.264/AAC in MP4, the default audio/video format when specifying .mp4 as the output file (can be changed, naturally).

Edit:

After digging, it seems Handbrake can rotate but only via command line. Maybe you can edit the command line options in the Handbrake GUI somewhere to add --rotate # somewhere?

 

[whisper]

Thank you, this set me along the right track! I did some digging as well and was able to achieve a 90 degree rotation in HandBrake by entering the command below into "Extra Options" under the Video tab:

, --rotate=4

I could also flip along the XY axes (equivalent to 180 degree rotation) by using:

, --rotate=3

Apparently the initial comma and space are important, but I haven't tried any variations to test this out. As typed above they are working perfectly. I am using HandBrake 0.9.9.5530 64bit version under Windows 7.