I was recently asked to rotate a video for a friend. Video rotation is required every now and then (especially when you record using a photo camera and the orientation is wrong).

It's quite simple to achieve if you've got a Mac and QuickTime Pro (which is dirt cheap). Here's a quick screencast showing how to rotate a movie (5mb).

It's surprisingly easy, but very well tucked away inside of QuickTime. Here are the steps:

  1. Open movie in QuickTime.
  2. Window -> Show Movie Properties (commandJ)
  3. In the track listings select the video track (you'll know because 'Visual Settings' will become available as a tab)
  4. Select Visual Settings and from the Flip/Rotate options, rotate in the appropriate direction.

Then just save it, or export it to the format du jour.