Knowing how to rotate video on your smartphone is essential for marketing videos. With the increasing quality of smartphones, it’s easy to take for granted just how amazing the software that powers them really is.
To rotate a video on the web it is actually fairly easy. Before we begin, I will assume you know how to upload and edit a video on your computer, and that you know how to add and edit text and apply transitions to make your videos look professional. I’m not going to cover the technical side of editing videos, because it’s already been done by others. But what I will do is demonstrate how to easily rotate a video on the web.
How to rotate a video in Windows 10 using the video editor in the Photos app
1. If you are using Windows 10, click the Windows symbol at the bottom left of your screen and type “Video Editor.” It should come up and look like a default app. Click on it to open the video editor part of the Photos app. 2. Either click “New video project” from the top left, or click on “New video” at the top right of the screen and select “Start new video project” from the resulting menu.
3. On the blank new project, either drag the video you wish to rotate into the project library, or click the “+Add” button, select “From this PC,” and find the video file you wish to rotate.
4. Drag the video from the project library into the timeline at the bottom. This should give you a preview window of the video you’re editing on the right side of the application.
5. Pressing Ctrl + R will rotate the video 90 degrees clockwise. Alternatively, you can find and click the “Rotate” button in the application window.
6. Select “Finish video” from the top right of the application, select a quality setting from “low” to “high,” and save the video to the destination folder you want to find it in.
How to Rotate Videos with VLC
VLC is a free, open-source media player that has built-in codec support for just about every video format out there and it’s available on every platform. It’s pretty much our preferred video player around here. Rotating a video in VLC is not quite as simple as doing it in Windows Movie Maker, but if you’ve already got VLC, you may as well use it.
First, open your video in VLC. As you can see, our example is upside down, so we’ll have to flip it.
Open the “Tools” menu and select “Effects and Filters” or use the keyboard shortcut Ctrl+E.
In the “Adjustments and Effects” window, on the “Video Effects” tab, click the “Geometrotry” tab and select the “Transform” check box.
Select a rotation from the dropdown menu (we’re rotating ours by 180 degrees) and then click “Close”. You could use the “Rotate” tool if you want, but selecting a transform from the dropdown is simpler if you just need a basic rotation.
The video should now be correctly oriented. You can watch it right away if you want.
This change isn’t permanent, though. You’ll need to save this video in its new orientation for that. Open Tools > Preferences (or press Ctrl +P), and at the bottom of the preferences window, enable “All” settings. With all the settings shown, drill down to the “Sout stream” heading (it will be under “Stream output”), and then click on “Transcode.” On the right, select the “Video transformation filter” option (this replaces the “Rotate video filter” option from older versions of VLC) and then click “Save.”
Next, open VLC’s “Media” menu and select “Convert/Save.” In the “Open Media” window, click the “Add” button and choose the file you just rotated.
Next, click the “Convert/Save” dropdown at the bottom of the “Open Media” window and select “Convert.”
Click the “Browse” button under Destination in the Convert window that appears. Select a save location, type a file name, and then click “Save.”
You shouldn’t have to change anything else. The default conversion profile should work well. Just go ahead and click “Start” to convert and save the file.
Note: If you have issues with audio after rotating the file, click the wrench-shaped “Edit Selected Profile” button to the right of the Profile box here. On the Audio Codec tab, select “Keep original audio track.” This time, VLC won’t try to transcode (convert) the video’s audio and will use the original audio. We didn’t have to do this, but at least one reader did—it depends on the file you’re converting.
You can now open your new movie file in any video application and it should play with the correct orientation.
How to rotate a video with Camtasia
Time needed: 1 minute.
Recording your video the wrong direction isn’t the end of the world. Rather than start all over again, use the rotation properties to rotate your video and save time in long run.
- Open a video editing programChoose one that is simple to use. Rotating is a straightforward task, even if you’ve never edited a video before. Camtasia lets you try editing videos for free.
- Find the video you want to rotateClick “Import Media” and browse to find the video you want. You can grab a clip from your computer, camera, or network. Click “Open” to add it to your media bin. Hint: Need to get large video files from your smartphone? The free TechSmith Fuse app can send them directly to Camtasia via your wireless connection.
- Get it ready to editDrag your video from the media bin to your timeline.
- Rotate your videoClick on the video in the large preview pane. In the center of the video, you’ll see two hollow circles. Hover over the circle on the right until your cursor turns into a rotation symbol. Click this symbol and move your mouse to tilt your video.
That’s all! Pretty quick, eh? If you want to get fancy, try these tips:
For more precise rotation, click-and-hold the rotation symbol and move your mouse near the outer edge of your video. Now you have a wider radius for more accuracy in your rotation movements.
This is especially helpful when you are rotating video from a smartphone or iPad/tablet that was taken just slightly askew from horizontal.
Have a specific angle in mind? Type in the degrees (no need to rotate by hand!). Select the video in the preview pane, then click the “Properties” button on the right. Under the “Rotation” heading, the “Z” axis is where you enter the number of degrees.
Hint: Put in 90 or 270 if you want to rotate vertical footage to be horizontal, or 180 if you want to rotate it upside down.
Especially if you’re turning a horizontal video into a vertical one, you might want to crop your clip after rotating it. Learn how in this video tutorial.
Bonus tip: Fill the space
Maybe you don’t want to rotate it, but you do want it to play in a horizontal space after recording vertically.
One trick that I like to do, is to duplicate the layer, and scale the background video up until it completely fills the space.
Then, either add a simple blur effect from inside the annotations tab – or adjust the opacity down to 25% to really make that top layer pop.
And just FYI this works in reverse too! Maybe you wanted to make a video for Instagram TV where the vertical video is the norm or even on YouTube where lots of people like to watch vertically on their phones.
Go into your project settings, reverse the 1920×1080 aspect ratio so it’s now 1080×1920 and rotate your video to fit!
Conclusion:
Rotating videos on your YouTube videos is a great help for your YouTube viewing experience. After all, what’s the purpose of focusing your attention on one video and not another? It makes sense — you want to view as many videos as possible—but rotating the content solves this problem giving you more time to enjoy each video.