VLC Media Player - Rotating Videos

When you are out and about and just want to capture that moment, you are not thinking about which orientation you need to record in so often you start in portrait (vertical) mode and rotate the phone for a better shot later. Unfortunately this looks great on the phone as the screen rotates automatically but often the video is locked in the original orientation that you started recording in and when played back you find that the video is now playing at 90 degrees on the screen as below.

This is easy to correct with VLC media Player, for free without watermarks, as detailed in this video but I have also detailed the steps below the video.

First of all you need VLC media Player which can be downloaded here https://www.videolan.org/vlc/

Once Installed, Open it up and select MEDIA -> OPEN FILE

Select Your File and Click OPEN

Now the Video should auto play and let it play till you get to the part where it needs rotating. I will say at this point that it converts the whole video file so I suggest you save a copy and trim only the parts you need rotating in a video editing suite. If you have Windows 10, you have the Video Editor tool located in the menu under V. You can easily cut up a video and stitch it back later with this free tool. Alternatively there are other free tools out there.

Ok so we have a point where the video has rotated. Pause the video here and In the top Menu bar, select TOOLS -> EFFECTS AND FILTERS

This Will display a pop up box as below. Select the Following Tabs

VIDEO EFFECTS -> GEOMETRY

You will now want to select the TRANSFORM check box and select how you want to rotate it from the drop down menu. See image below. You will note that the video rotates in the background to confirm you have the correct Transform applied. I have selected 270 degrees which is the same as -90 degrees.

Once you are happy, Click on Close.

Ok, we now have a rotated video but we need to export it ( Save into a new independent file) so lets go to the Top Menu Bar and select

MEDIA -> CONVERT/SAVE

This will produce a pop up box. Click the ADD button

This will open the file explorer so select your file and click OPEN

This will return you to the Open Media Pop up so now at the bottom, click on the drop down menu (arrow) next to Convert / Save and select CONVERT.

Select the Profile (output format), I always leave as MP4 as this is widely used. Now in the Destination Section, Select the BROWSE button.

You now need to select the output folder (this is where your video will be found after conversion). I tend to put it in the same folder and filename but add what has happened to the file name. In this case rotated 270 degrees. Click the SAVE button.

Nearly there, You will be returned to the CONVERT pop up and now you simply click the START button.

You will now see a blank screen, as below, with the blue bar increasing from left to right to show progress.

Once complete, The screen will go back to the opening/launch blank screen.

You should now have a converted file in the file location specified but play it back in another media player or close VLC and re-open. If you try and play the video straight away, you may find it at the wrong orientation because you still have the Effects Transform set to rotate it. You could also go back to EFFECTS and Set the Transform to none or 0 degrees rotation.

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