Small video files - help please!

[Sortie 10]

I took a few short (max 90 seconds) videos with a my Nikon point and shoot camera. Unfortunately I turned the camera into a portrait hold before shooting, result is that I have to turn my head through 90 degrees to watch them!
Is there any way of rotating the video through 90 degrees, as with a still shot, to make the films watchable in comfort?

As you can see, I fall firmly in to the novice category on this aspect of photography!

Thanks for any advice.

[robbieduncan]

Mac or Windows? Quicktime Pro (paid for) will do it on either. Final Cut will do it on Mac OSX. Probably thousands of other solutions too...

[chrisjl]

mplayer will definitely do it.
Download it from here : www.mplayerhq.hu/design7/dload.html
Pick the first link from the 'MPlayer 1.0pre8 Windows build' row of the table. All you need out of the zip is mplayer.exe

The (or one of many potential) commands to issue is:

mencoder -oac copy -ovc lavc -lavcopts vcodec=msmpeg4v2 -vf rotate=X -o rotated.avi original.avi

where:
X is either 1 (for clockwise) or 2 (for anti-clockwise)
rotated.avi is the name of the file that will be created
original.avi is, well, obvious!

The output file should play pretty much anywhere.

edited to add:
Instructions assumed Windoze, but the same applies for Linux and OS X if you download the right version.

Edited by chrisjl on Sunday 1st October 16:11

Edited by chrisjl on Sunday 1st October 16:11

[olf]

chrisjl said:

mplayer will definitely do it.
Download it from here : www.mplayerhq.hu/design7/dload.html
Pick the first link from the 'MPlayer 1.0pre8 Windows build' row of the table. All you need out of the zip is mplayer.exe

The (or one of many potential) commands to issue is:

mencoder -oac copy -ovc lavc -lavcopts vcodec=msmpeg4v2 -vf rotate=X -o rotated.avi original.avi

where:
X is either 1 (for clockwise) or 2 (for anti-clockwise)
rotated.avi is the name of the file that will be created
original.avi is, well, obvious!

The output file should play pretty much anywhere.

edited to add:
Instructions assumed Windoze, but the same applies for Linux and OS X if you download the right version.

Edited by chrisjl on Sunday 1st October 16:11

Edited by chrisjl on Sunday 1st October 16:11

Hi Chris,

Great info, can you tell me where you 'issue' (i.e. how) that command in OSX?

Edited by olf on Sunday 1st October 18:37

[chrisjl]

olf said:

Hi Chris,
Great info, can you tell me where you 'issue' (i.e. how) that command in OSX?

The way I got my 'mencoder' executable was to pinch it out of the 'mplayer osx' bundle.

I can't remember which of these I used as my startpoint:
www.mplayerhq.hu/design7/dload.html
http://mplayerosx.sourceforge.net/

(they might ultimately be the exact same thing - not really got time to look into it right now)

Whichever one it was, right-click on the application then select 'show bundle contents' (or words to that effect).
Dig down into it ->Contents->Resources and you should find 'mencoder'.
Copy that somewhere (just your home direcrory would do).

Then you need a terminal window to actually type the command into.
'cd' to where the video file is, and then issue the command:
/Users/olf/mencoder -oac copy -ovc lavc -lavcopts vcodec=msmpeg4v2 -vf rotate=X -o rotated.avi original.avi

I have previously bundled this up into a little app that makes it all much easier - I'll see if I can dig it out...

Edited by chrisjl on Monday 2nd October 13:20

[robbieduncan]

olf said:

Hi Chris,

Great info, can you tell me where you 'issue' (i.e. how) that command in OSX?

Terminal.app. It's in /Applications/Utiltiies. You may need to find out where the executable is as it's probably not going to be in your PATH...

[chrisjl]

robbieduncan said:

Terminal.app. It's in /Applications/Utiltiies. You may need to find out where the executable is as it's probably not going to be in your PATH...

Yeh, I was assuming it wasn't even on his machine yet either.

[olf]

chrisjl said:

robbieduncan said:

Terminal.app. It's in /Applications/Utiltiies. You may need to find out where the executable is as it's probably not going to be in your PATH...

Yeh, I was assuming it wasn't even on his machine yet either.

Have no fear - I'm not so inept that I don't even have the app on my machine yet! It was issuing the command from the home directory of the actual movie file that I missed so many thanks for your help - I shall have another crack at it tonight!

[Sortie 10]

Thanks for your help, I am using Windows XP Home Edition. Being a real numpty on IT I have come across a problem that does not seem to be covered in the FAQs on the mplayer website.
I have downloaded, unzipped and found the mplayer icon. Opening this 7.65MB file causes a small screen of DOS commands to flash up on the screen and disappear within a couple of seconds. I have rebooted the machine, but this does not improve the situation.

Could anyone further assist me?

Thanks again.

[olf]

chrisjl said:

olf said:

Hi Chris,
Great info, can you tell me where you 'issue' (i.e. how) that command in OSX?

The way I got my 'mencoder' executable was to pinch it out of the 'mplayer osx' bundle.

I can't remember which of these I used as my startpoint:
www.mplayerhq.hu/design7/dload.html
http://mplayerosx.sourceforge.net/

(they might ultimately be the exact same thing - not really got time to look into it right now)

Whichever one it was, right-click on the application then select 'show bundle contents' (or words to that effect).
Dig down into it ->Contents->Resources and you should find 'mencoder'.
Copy that somewhere (just your home direcrory would do).

Then you need a terminal window to actually type the command into.
'cd' to where the video file is, and then issue the command:
/Users/olf/mencoder -oac copy -ovc lavc -lavcopts vcodec=msmpeg4v2 -vf rotate=X -o rotated.avi original.avi

I have previously bundled this up into a little app that makes it all much easier - I'll see if I can dig it out...

Edited by chrisjl on Monday 2nd October 13:20

hmmm, thanks for your continued help! Can't find mencoder, only executable files are mplayer and that doesn't seem to work!

Let me know if you find that little app!

[chrisjl]

Sortie 10 said:

I have downloaded, unzipped and found the mplayer icon. Opening this 7.65MB file causes a small screen of DOS commands to flash up on the screen and disappear within a couple of seconds.

mplayer.exe is a command line application, so what you're seeing there is just it printing out a minimal amount of "help".
You need to start up a Command Prompt.
Either:
a) Start->Programs->Accessories->Command Prompt
b) Start->Run, then enter 'cmd' (without the quotes) and click OK.

In the Command Prompt, navigate to wherever your video file is.
To switch to a different drive, enter just the letter and a colon (e.g. X: )
To switch to a different directory, use 'cd' (e.g. cd folderwithvideoin)
For convenience, put your mencoder.exe in the same directory, then the previously mentioned command should work.

NOTE: It is mencoder.exe that you need, not mplayer.exe (from the same source)
(I might have mentioned the wrong one earlier by mistake)

[chrisjl]

olf said:

hmmm, thanks for your continued help! Can't find mencoder, only executable files are mplayer and that doesn't seem to work!

You've got/found 'mplayer osx', that pops up a video player window? You have to dig inside it to get at 'mencoder' the command line executable (see earlier post). Or have you already done that?

olf said:

Let me know if you find that little app!

It was originally built for Windoze - I struggled a bit last night trying to bundle a self-contained OSX version, but if I succeed I'll let you know!