We show you free software that can rotate and export your videos
By Adam Shepherd | PC Advisor | 01 October 14
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Smartphone video has meant that we can all capture precious moments on camera at the touch of a button, but sometimes when you transfer video files to PC, you can find that your videos have come out upside down or in portrait mode. Nobody wants to have to do a handstand to watch their home movies, so here’s our how-to guide on how to rotate your videos. (For those who want a mix of smartphone and camcorder, check out our review of the Samsung Galaxy K Zoom.)
How to rotate your videos on PC
Similar to Apple, Microsoft has its own proprietary video editing software in the form of Windows Live Movie Maker. However, due to the intensive graphics processing requirements, we found it wouldn’t run on the laptop we were using for this how-to. We decided to use a free program called Freemake Video Converter.
It’s a slightly weightier installation than VideoBlend (see below), but not overly. On the other hand, it does contain some sneaky ‘crap-ware’ in the form of Yahoo toolbars and Opera browser installation options that come pre-checked by default.
All you need to do is uncheck them in order to avoid them, but it’s easy to miss if you’re not looking for it.
Once you’ve installed and opened the video converter, select the option to add video in the top left. Select the video you wish to rotate, and then click the button to the left of the file with the editing icons on it.
Once the editing panel opens, there will be a big green rotate button. This rotates the image 90 degrees clockwise, so clicking it twice will return an upside-down video to normal. Once you’re happy with your footage, click the OK button.
Finally, to save your video, click on the device or file format you’d like to save it as. You can also choose from a variety of different qualities or encoding options, or just keep to the default settings. Click convert, and wait for your video to be saved.
How to rotate your videos on Mac
For video editing, Mac users are often pointed to Apple’s own-brand software, but we found iMovie to be a little clunky and unintuitive to work with, especially when dealing with unsupported file types. Instead, we used third-party editing software VideoBlend, which you can download for free.
It’s a small download, and installs very quickly, so you should have no trouble getting it started. Once you have, simply click the rotate option at the top of the screen, and drag and drop your video file into the VideoBlend window.
Then, simply click on one of the arrows at the bottom of the window to rotate 90 degrees clockwise or anticlockwise, or to flip horizontally or vertically.
You can than click the save button to the right to save your re-orientated video. You can also choose to re-encode the file to a different video format at the same time.
