How to rotate videos for proper viewing?

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When I take movies in Landscape mode with my camera (MOV extension), they play back normally on my computer (using Windows Media Player, VLC, etc.), and of course, when I view them in my camera.

But if I take the movies in the Protrait orientation (i.e., when I turn my camera sideways), the pictures play back sideways on my computer, rather than right side up in Portrait orientation.

I’m looking for a program that will play back the movies in the correct orientation (i.e., as they were taken), or allow me to rotate and save the movies in the proper orientation.

I know how to change the settings in VLC to rotate the movies while playing them, but then it does the same to ALL the movies, causing my Landscape orientation movies to play sideways.

Any suggestions for a player smart enough to recognize how the movies were oriented when taken, and play them back correctly?

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IN my DSLR the camera writes to the EXIF data in a picture whether it was taken in portrait or landscape. Good viewing/editing programs will honour this when showing the picture. I’ve just looked at one of my videos but that doesn’t have any EXIF data (perhaps not surprising as it’s from quite an old videocam). I would think that it would be your camera that would write any data. Try looking at the metadata using a program like exiftoolgui, this is what I used to investigate my video.

I use that tool to modify exif data in my photos – you might be able to use it to modify your videos to rotate the image. If you do don’t forget to experiment on a copy of the video (though Exiftoolgui’s default is to create a backup anyway).

Note that EXIF/XMP/IPTC are a bit of a minefield…

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Thanks for that info. I’ll get a copy of the tool.
By the way, my camera is a Canon SX260 HS.

Interestingly, my photos always display properly, but the icons exhibit the same problem as the video. If I do a JPEG lossless rotation on these photos (using IrfanView), then the icons also display correctly, without screwing up the display of the photo. I wonder if I can use Irfanview in a similar manner to correct the videos . . .?

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