...Rotate your Video
the step by step How to ...
(by cedricboudin@hotmail.com)
You did some nice videos with your digital camera but when watching some of them on your computer, you get a neck ache because some of them are up side down!
Don't worry, now that you are home, you will not have to go back to Paris to put the Eiffel Tower right !
So yes, you will need a bit of time and effort to rotate your videos, but when this has been done, you will be able to watch them confortably installed in your armchair ! You will now learn how to turn your videos by 90 or even 180 degrees !
First of all : Get the right tools, you will have to download and install these:
Once downloaded, double click on each of them to start the setup program and follow the instructions.
Nota Bene : Some digital camera out there produce some videos with an ".mov" extension ! Be aware of that because this "how to" will teach how to rotate videos with an ".avi" extension. And if you get .mov files with your camera, you will have to follow the guide to convert them in the right format : How to convert an .mov video into an .avi video!
If you haven't change the default settings, VirtualDub should be installed in c:\Program Files\VirtualDub In this folder, you will find the virtualDubMob.exe file which is the program, we want to launch. (You can still create a shortcut on your desktop, so you will not have to search for it next time...)
VirtualDub
is now ready for action. Let's start by « Open video file » and we will choose the video we want to transform.
Therefore, I will look for the video where I stored it during the transfer from my digital camera to my computer. Mine is called « Tour » (Tower in french) :
My Video is now opened in Virtualdub, I can apply some filters to make it turn:
To select the filter I want to use, I click on
« ADD »:
In the list, I will choose "Rotate":
Now, I have to choose the direction and the amount of the rotation:
I obtain the summary of the action I'm about to apply to my video. You can notice the « Cropping » function, I'm not going to use it there but you might use it at home if required...
If you use the cursor at the bottomp of the window, you will be able to have a preview of the result on the right...
Now, we have to choose the compression parameters. You can still choose not to compress your video but you will end up with a large file, which you won't be able to send by email for instance. So we better choose a compression option:
At the beginning of this guide, you have installed 2 codecs, they should appear on the list below. Windows Media Vidéo 9 is a compression codec from Microsoft, its particularity is that any windows will be able to read it (windows update will get it over the internet, if not installed on a computer). Xvid is a free open codec and can be read on windows, linux ou mac operating system (once the codec has been installed). With Xvid codec, you will also be able to burn your video onto a cd to read it with your divx player. So choose the most suitable codec for you and then hit « Configure » if you want to modify the default setttings, otherwise just hit « OK ». If you decide to configure your codec, you should know that the more compression you apply, the less quality you get...
Once this has been done for the video, we could decide to compress audio stream as well. You can leave the audio stream uncompressed, it doesn't really matter but if you want to compress it, click on « Streams », and choose « Stream
list ».
A new window pops up:
Right click, on the light grey part and you will see a new menu in which you will choose « Full
processing mode »
And again, in the light grey zone, right click to select « Conversion »:
In the new window, choose these options:
A last right click, and we will now choose
« Compression »:
In the compression menu, follow the option below:
Just click "OK" :
Last thing to do, save the new video file! "File" ->
« Save As »
Choose where you want to store it on your computer:
Process starts:
Once done, you can close VirtualDubMob, and you will find the new video where you stored it. If you find that the quality is not good enough or if the file is to big, start again from the beginning and choose an other compression rate in the codec parameters...
! enjoy !