Rotate a video file (.AVI) 90 degrees

When I was in New York City, I used my camera to shoot a small footage. But the video file turned out to be in the landscape mode, so I did a little research on how to rotate the video file by an angle, say 90 degrees clockwise.

  • The first thing you can try is the Windows Movie Maker in the accessories. Import the video file into the storyboard and right click to choose the “video effects”. Add “rotate 90″ to the effect, and then you can export the movie to a WMV file. The good thing here is that you don’t need to download anything, since Windows Movie Maker comes with Windows XP.
  • The other solution is that you can download a software called virtualdub. Open the video file in virtualdub, and make sure in the “video” menu you are in the “full processing mode”. Now choose “add filters” and find the “rotate” filter. After the rotate filter, don’t forget to add a “resize” filter. If your original movie is 640×480, you should set the resize filter to 480×640.

Here is the final result for a short video I took on the fifth ave. in new york city.
[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i1NAMOZfXcU[/youtube]

25 Responses to “Rotate a video file (.AVI) 90 degrees”

  1. Renee Says:

    Hey, thanks so much for that! I’ve been driving myself half insane trying to do that for the past day and a half, thanks heaps!

  2. John Rigby Says:

    Thanks, I used the Virtualdub software, worked a treat, your instructions are easy to follow, without being overlong, thanks again

  3. Tisha Says:

    Virtual Dub worked like a charm! Thank you soooo much, rotating vids was giving me such a headache!

  4. Gemini Says:

    You’re a life saver… Your Tip on VirtualDub worked 100%… (1000% really)
    Thank you very much for that info!!!

  5. John Says:

    I’ve upload a video to youtube, then I embed it to my website. Can I rotate(90degree/180degree) the video(together with the control player) by using any html code?

  6. roger Says:

    cheers for the pointer. got me little lad in the right orientation now !!! STAR !!!

  7. sumeet kshirsagar Says:

    thanks man
    there were some dance videos of mine that recquired a 90 degree rotation which i finaally got it coz of u thanks again

    in
    youtube.com

    type ” sumeet stage show ” in the search bar to check out the videos

    thanks again dear

    bye god bless

  8. Cass Says:

    I can’t figure it out. =/

  9. Gregg Woodcock Says:

    Why is the resize filter necessary? I rotated many of mine and did not resize and it looks just like the example you showed. What am I missing?

  10. kingler Says:

    It’s been a while. I guess it is the same, if you don’t apply the resize filter. I remembered that I added the resize filter to make sure the output video has the dimension that I want.

  11. Tori Says:

    I got mine to rotate 90 degree and it rotated it, but only the frist 2 seconds, then it flips back during playback. Whats the deal there ? I used Windows Movie Maker

  12. Janice Says:

    I can’t install Windows Movie Maker because I’m using Windows Server 2003 and it says it’s only for XP, so i tried virtualdub and it works fine, thanks!!!

  13. Ted Says:

    AWESOME ADVICE - never even thought of Windows Movie Maker and it’s been sitting in the computer…..had several clips “on their side” and this advice was great. THANKS

  14. Meka Says:

    Thank you for this advice, I used your advice to rotate a customer testimonial for a website I’m working on and it worked great… the lady is a little wider than she actually is in real life, but not enough to worry about. Many thanks!

  15. Encarni Says:

    Er.. it works a charm, but the file size is enormous!!! I rotated a 15MB video and it turned into a massive 266MB video! What am I doing wrong???

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  17. jamesk Says:

    Encarni—-

    Under video, choose compression. Then pick Xvid or another standard compression type that is used. Change the quality to your liking. I had the same problem, but was able to get a file of similar size using the Xvid compressor.

  18. felix Says:

    thanks for kind information
    most cell phone user make this type of fault
    now they have solution to how to rotate video
    thanks

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  20. Lydia Says:

    Thanks SO much. I’ve been reading for hours, downloading some “free” programs and just couldn’t get it to work right. You’ve provided me with a (very) easy way of accomplishing something others were making very hard.

  21. Stella Says:

    Thanks a lot! :) Virtualdub is excellent! I am using it now! Cheers

  22. Lynn Says:

    I was so worried that I couldn’t rotate my only movie we took with my dog that passed. Thank you so very much for your instructions. You are the BEST!

  23. Sly Says:

    Yeah, thanks allot! Took me 2 minutes to rotate video…instead of possibly hours thanks to your post.

  24. Miha Says:

    Thanks a lot!!! Very useful and time saving post:)

  25. Jodi Says:

    Thanks so much for the step-by-step for VirtualDub. Had a video I shot on my point-n-click camera and didn’t realize I had it turned when I did it. After loading it to the computer, I tried Movie Maker, but got a distorted image result. Your tip on adding the resize filter was the thing I was missing. Found VirtualDub did a better job of keeping the video clear and undistorted.

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