Inverted Video

[#1]

My wife has videoed our grandson's birthday party on her phone. She has used the phone in landscape mode for one video, and another in portrait. She has downloaded the videos onto her laptop, only to find the landscape video is upside down, and the portrait video shows in landscape (everyone is laying on their sides). So far we haven't found a way to correct for either, though we haven't searched her phone for a solution yet.

Does anyone know a way, apart from standing her laptop upside down, or on its end, to correct these problems?

Thanks in advance for any help

[#2]

@penneck I think I had a similar problem... tried to run it with SMPlayer on Linux... then tried it with VLC media  player. and it showed "normal"... don`t think I made any changes anywhere.  give VLC a shot

[#3]

Hello @shutter , I have just installed VLC, but unfortunately it hasn't solved the problem. However, we now have an additional problem. As I tried to set things up for installing VLC, somehow I managed to set things going which weren't supposed to happen, and my wife's collection of photos and videos have become attached to a different location on the hard drive under C:/users/wife/music, not under C:/users/wife, and it wont let me cut and paste them back - it keeps saying they cannot be moved because something in this folder is being used elsewhere. I haven't been able to identify what is being used nor what is using it. This looks like a long job.

Thanks for your help

[#4]

@penneck  OH Crikey me.    sounds like VLC has taken over your "photo albums"...  If you uninstall VLC, then they should go back to their original location. ( hopefully ) .  the comment  " they cannot be moved because something in this folder is being used elsewhere" sound lke it is VLC running in the background stopping the copy and paste operation.

Since you posted, I went back to the video that caused me to use VLC and it now, flashes up the first second in the wrong orientation, and then corrects it to "normal" landscape orientation, using SMPlayer, which is my 1st choice for video playing.

Perhaps installing SMPlayer may sort it for you ?  ? ?

P.S.   Have sent you a P.M.

[#5]

Apparently VLC can rotate video's and save them. Never knew that until out of curiosity I googled "vlc rotate video and save".

VLC never ceases to amaze me.

[#6]

Hello @billnotben . I've googled "vlc rotate video and save" as you suggested, and top of the results was Animaker. Now I'm not complaining, but I've had to try to contact them, because it takes you through the steps until after the 'rotation', but doesn't tell you to save it. Instead it takes you into a section called "Rotate Your Video Permanently" where it starts by stating "The settings you’d modified using the steps above will be applied to all the videos you play using VLC". I dont want to rotate all of my videos, just these few, and they need rotating by different amounts. I've asked for clarification. Hopefully, I will get an answer in a few days. I dont want to damage these videos (or anything else - you may have seen the msg to shutter about what has gone wrong during the process to install VLC).

In the meantime, thankyou for your suggestion

[#7]

@penneck  As a precaution, why not copy the videos " as is " to a USB stick, and work on those copies, rather than the originals... ?

If they are "locked" in with VLC , then obtain new versions from the originators, and make local copies to the USB stick for safe keeping .

[#8]

I've had occasion to use a more obscure function of VLC and yes they're not exactly user friendly. Maybe there is some simpler dedicated software to do this, and there are a few online services.

As shutter suggests it may be worth experimenting with a few copies to see which works the best.

[#9]

@penneck 

Try using LockHunter to find which files are actively being used by another program. This give various options to unlock, delete, rename the file and has saved me from tearing my hair out many a time.

You could also try Handbrake which, although comprehensive, can be quite simple in use. I haven't used it for rotating/Flipping yet but if you wish to try it I will do my best to help you..

[#10]

Hello @Mav , @billnotben  and @shutter . Sorry I've been quiet for a couple of days, but have just had to spend the last few days looking after some of my grandchildren rather than being able to work on this problem. 

Anyway, back to the problem. I've uninstalled VLC then reinstalled it. I tried using the Animaker method of using VLC to rotate a video, but it didn't work as I expected. It told me use VLC to open the video, and then go into the process to do the rotation. However, before I could get to doing the rotation, the video started and it was up the right way, so I didn't have to rotate it. However, it wouldn't let me save what I had got (the Save was greyed out), so I came out of VLC. Thinking VLC had corrected the problem, I started the video in the same way my wife would watch them (Windows Live Photo Gallery - dont know why she uses that), but the video was still upside down. At this point I checked the Properties of this video, and it was set to start up in Windows Live Photo Gallery, so I changed that to VLC. Now when I use Windows Explorer to find the video, and start it, it is up the right way. Not only that, but the other videos in the same folder have been set to start in VLC - I didn't tell them to do that, so what I had just done seems to have gone through the whole folder. The story now seems to be that if we find the file using Windows Live Photo Gallery, the video shows in whatever rotation it was originally set in, whereas using Windows Explorer (and because it is set to start in VLC) it shows the right way up no matter what.

I still haven't found an answer to why these pictures and videos don't show in the right part of the Libraries listings under Pictures.

Oh well. Thankyou all for your help. Have a good weekend

[#11]

@penneck 

Glad it's fixed.

As for the other files in the same folder also now opening with VLC player this is because when you change the app a file starts up in if you have the option 'Always use this app to open .xxx files' selected then all files of that type in any folder will now open in VLC Player.

[#12]

Hello @Mav , @billnotben  and @shutter . Well is not quite solved. As an experiment, I went on my pc where I always use VLC for videos. I opened one video and used VLC to Flip it horizontally, then saved it. Trouble is it flipped all my videos (or at least those I tested afterwards) - now I had loads of lefthanded guitarists. It seems what you do to one video, it does to ALL - I haven't found a way to get it to flip only the video I wanted flipped. Anyway, I went back into that video, but it wouldn't let me flip it again to get it back to the original orientation, nor select taking it back to its original form, so I had to open another video (which had flipped) then flip that one. That got all my videos back the right way.

Moral of this story is - BE CAREFUL - you might get more than you want

Cheers fellas