How to Rotate and Flip a Video in VLC Media Player

VLC Media Player can do a lot more to videos than just playing it. We know that it can convert videos or stream them from online sources. Those are some of the good uses of VLC Media Player. Now comes the time to share an interesting use of VLC Media Player. This interesting use of VLC Media Player is to rotate videos while playing them.

Videos can be rotated, flipped and even transposed for different purposes. Videos can be simply rotated by clockwise 90 degrees, 180 degrees, and 270 degrees. You can also rotate the video by arbitrary angles such as 1 degree, 27 degrees and so on. Besides rotating, videos can also be flipped horizontally and vertically. Finally, videos can also be transposed or anti-transposed, which flips and rotates the videos at the same time. You will be surprised by the number of things that VLC Media Player can do with videos.

To rotate, flip or transpose videos in VLC Media Player:

1. From the VLC Media Player menu, go to Tools > Effects and Filters [Shortcut: CTRL + E].
   
2. From the Adjustment and Effects, go to the “Video Effects” tab.
   
3. Go to the sub tab of Video Effects that says “Geometry”.
   
4. Check on the checkbox beside the text that says “Transform”. There you will find options to do the following to your video:

   • Rotate by Fixed Angle

     : Click on transform, to rotate a video by a certain fixed and a standard number of degrees: 90, 180 and 270 degrees. Those can be selected from the drop-down after you check the transform button.

   • Flip Videos

     : From the drop-down select on “Flip horizontally” or “Flip vertically” to flip the videos in those directions.

   • Transpose

     : Click on “Transpose” and “Anti-transpose” from the same drop-down to flip as well as rotate the video. Transpose is when your video is rotated 270 degrees clockwise and flipped horizontally. Anti-transpose is the result when your video is rotated by 90 degrees clockwise and flipped horizontally.
     

   • Rotate by Certain Angle

     : Check on the checkbox beside the text that says “Rotate”. Move the angle dialer around. Your video will be rotated by a certain arbitrary degree.
     

Note: Remember that this rotation setting is saved and when you open a new video, it will still be rotated. You will have to come to this section to uncheck the boxes to disable rotation for playing other videos.

To Make the Rotation Permanent

The steps that you followed above just rotated the video for playing only. If you want to make the rotation permanent, follow these instructions after the above steps:

• From the menu bar, go to Media > Convert / Save. [CTRL + R]
• Click on Add, and browse and add the current video.
• Click on Convert/Save.
  
• In the Convert dialog, click on Settings next to the Profile.
  
• In the Profile edition dialog, navigate to Video Codec > Filters tab tab
• Activate the Video transformation filter.
  
  Note: Activate the Rotate video filter if the video was rotated at an angle like 59 degrees.
• Switch to the Audio codec tab, and choose MP3 as the Codec under Encoding parameters.
  
• In the Convert dialog, don’t forget to choose a Destination file and press Start.

• Hit Play to begin the transformation process.

The video will be rotated and the changes will be permanently saved in the destination file. If the player minimizes, bring it back up. If the transformation process has not started, press Play in VLC controls. The position seeker will show the progress of the conversion.

Some Uses of Rotating a Video

• Correcting a video that has been taken in the wrong way or angle. For example the person who took the video decides to rotate the camera device while taking the video. One way to watch it normally is to rotate it by VLC.
• Watching the video in style by rotating it in a certain angle.
• Filling up a portrait video of the entire area of a widescreen. When a video’s height is longer than the width, the screen displays black areas on the left and right. In such a case, rotating the video by 90 degrees or 270 degrees will help fill up the entire monitors which have more width then height normally.