How to Rotate a Video in VLC (And Save It)

Watching a movie or other clip with a conventional 16:9 or old-school 4:3 aspect ratio is a cinch on VLC player. But the rise of smartphones has brought with it one unfortunate side effect – filming videos horizontally (or vertically), then rotating the camera after you started recording.

This means that when you open the culprit video in a video player like VLC, you need to rotate it to make it properly watchable. Here we show you not only how to rotate a video in VLC but how to save it after it’s been rotated.

Also read: How to Download Subtitles Automatically in VLC

Rotate Your VLC Video

First, open your video in VLC and take a moment to appreciate how wrong it looks. Now let’s see how you can fix it.

1. To begin with, go to “Tools -> Effects and Filters.”

2. Next, click the Video Effects tab, then the Geometry tab, and tick the checkbox that says “Transform.”

The drop-down menu below this setting should no longer be greyed out, and you should be able to rotate your video as you see fit.

3. Select the dropdown menu option to rotate the video either by 90 degrees or 270 degrees. This makes your video vertical if it was horizontal (and vice versa).

You can also “Flip” it to turn it into a mirror image of itself or Transpose it, which flips it and makes it fit the screen.

Also read: The Best of VLC: 7 Useful Things You Can Do in VLC Media Player

Save Your Rotated Video

Once you’ve made the rotation adjustments you wanted, click Save. Note that saving at this point doesn’t save the video in its rotated form but rather the settings for VLC as a whole, which means every subsequent video you watch will start off in your rotated format (not convenient at all). We’ll show you how to reset this later.

1. If you’re happy with your video and want to save it, click Tools in the ribbon at the top, then Preferences.

2. At the bottom left of the Preferences window, click “All” under “Show settings,” then click “Video” and “Filters” in the pane on the left.

3. On the right side, tick the “Video transformation filter” box and click “Save.”

4. Next, click “Media” in the ribbon at the top of your VLC window, then “Convert/Save.”

5. In the new window, click “Add,” then browse to your video and select it. Click “Convert/Save” with it selected.

6. In the next window, click the Profile drop-down menu and select a video format profile you’re happy with – the first one, H.264 + MP3 (MP4), is fine for most purposes.

7. Next, click the wrench icon next to the Profile drop-down, and then click the “Video codec” tab.

(Beforehand, you can select the video format you want to save to if you like – we’re happy sticking with the default MPEG-TS.)

8. Under the “Video codec” tab, tick the “Video” checkbox, the Filters tab, then scroll down and tick the box that says “Video transformation filter” and click “Save.”

9. Back at the “Convert” window, the last thing you need to do is select the destination you want to save your rotated file to (at the bottom of the window) and give it a new filename.

Make the name distinct, as we had problems when using a variant of the original name.

10. Click “Start” to begin the conversion process.

Your newly rotated video should now appear in the destination you saved it to.

11. Now, to reset your VLC settings to default, just go to “Tools -> Preferences,” then click “Reset Preferences” at the bottom of the window.

Also read: The Best of VLC: 7 Useful Things You Can Do in VLC Media Player

Conclusion

The above should be all you need to know to rotate a video in VLC and save it. Please note, however, that some users have reported issues doing this in certain versions of VLC. It worked fine for us in the latest version of the VLC Media Player. If you run into problems, you may need to ensure that you are running the latest version of the VLC player.

Rotating videos is not the only handy VLC feature you get for free. You can also use the app to extract audio clips from your favorite videos.