Rotate video clips using a free program
Jan 24, '07 07:30:00AM
Contributed by: avi4now
Many compact point-and-shoot digital cameras can now shoot high-quality video, with some approaching the quality of a DV video camera. This is great, but there are a few snags that can arise. In particular, people who are using to shooting stills may mistakenly rotate the camera and shoot the video in portrait orientation. They'll get the shot, but the resulting video file will be sideways.
If you have one of these files and want to use it in a project, you'll have to download some software -- iMovie can't rotate. Using Google, I found some tips on using QuickTime Pro, but who wants to pay $30 just for this one function? Not me!
Short answer: use BitPlayer instead. Read on for the longer answer...
Here's a more detailed walkthrough, as I originally posted on my blog:
- Open the video in BitPlayer.
- Open the Info window by either:
- In the Window menu, choose Show Info
- Press Command-I
- Control-Click or right-Click on the video in the playlist and choose Show Info
- Open the View tab
- Click one of the arrow buttons next to Orientation. This will rotate the video, but only in BitPlayer.
- Play the video for a few seconds to make sure it looks right.
- In the File menu, choose Export Movie.
- Choose a location for the new movie and options for the export.
- The format options can be crazy-deep, so I can't really help you there, except: if you're planning to use the video in iMovie, and/or don't want to take much time for compression, choose DV Stream as the format. If you want to export for distribution (web, etc), choose QuickTime Movie.
[robg adds: I haven't tried this app...]
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