With a newly mobile infant, I found myself taking a handful of video clips using my little digital camera - a Canon PowerShot S40. Many times I would rotate the camera when recording the video, as I am apt to do when taking a photograph, so I would end up with a video clip that required head tilting to view. I became determined to find an obscenely intuitive and quick way to rotate these videos (WITHOUT having to pay for applications such as QuickTime Pro) and make them available to post online (here in Blogger or in Google Video).

There was no problem finding SOMETHING online to quickly and easily rotate the videos for free, but trying to post the rotated product became a more time-consuming problem. I'll start by describing what I did to rotate the videos and then delve into the posting issue.

A simple Google search for "rotate video" will return many FREE apps, utilities, and scripts to flip, rotate, crop, and size videos of all formats imaginable. I tried one shareware utility for the Mac OS and two AppleScripts, all of which I found very intuitive (i.e., did not need a tutorial or read someone's how-to write-up).

TransformMovie is the shareware utility that allows you to rotate a movie by dropping the file into the opened application window. Settings can be modified in "Preferences" to indicate degrees of rotation, center of rotation, scale factors, and more. I really liked the drag and drop method of this application. So easy! However, because this is shareware, a donation is requested to unlock all of its features. For a simple movie rotation, the free version works just fine.

The following two AppleScripts were obtained from Mac OS forums, posted by other users and leverage the free QuickTime Player pre-installed with the Mac OS. I do not take credit for them, but highly recommend each for their ease of use:

AppleScript 1: (Rotates the opened video file 90 degrees clockwise; use -90 to rotate counter-clockwise.)

tell application "QuickTime Player"
set m to (get document 1)
rotate m by 90
save self contained m in (choose file name with prompt "save self contained movie")
end tell

AppleScript 2: (A little more user interaction is required. Opens Finder and prompts user to select the video file to rotate 90 degrees. User is then prompted to select direction of rotation - CW or CCW - and a location to save the file.)

set originalMovie to choose file with prompt "Select a movie to rotate:"
display dialog "Rotate clockwise or counter-clockwise?" buttons {"Clockwise", "Counter-Clockwise"}
set turnChoice to button returned of the result
set saveRef to choose file name with prompt "Save a new copy of the movie here:"
tell application "QuickTime Player"
activate
open originalMovie
tell document 1
if turnChoice = "Clockwise" then
rotate right (the first track whose kind is "video")
else
rotate left (the first track whose kind is "video")
end if
save in saveRef as self contained
end tell
end tell

I copied both of these scripts into Applications->AppleScript->Script Editor and hit "Run". That's it!

Excellent and Hooray! Now, I have several versions of rotated videos, but as soon as I went to post them, they would revert back to their portrait mode. WTF!! I uploaded the videos to Blogger and Google Video; both with the same results. It was getting late and it was time for bed. While at work the next day, I would occasionally ponder what the problem could be. I came to the conclusion that there must be an aspect ratio specification for the uploaded videos in Blogger and GV. Before editing, these videos were in portrait mode - wide and short. After rotation, the videos were skinny and tall. Could Blogger and GV require that all videos be a certain aspect ratio that supports the standard wide and short portrait mode video? Can I modify these settings? What would happen if I changed the height and width of the HTML code for the posted videos? I logged into Blogger, swapped the numbers in the height and width elements so that the height became the width and the width became the height. Nothing. Hmmmmm. Back to work.

When I got home, I investigated the aspect ratio hypothesis and it seemed legitimate, so I looked into more free utilities or manuals on how to change the aspect ratio of an edited video clip. As it turns out, a Plug-In for iMovie I had downloaded awhile back called SimpleRotate could do my video rotation (duh!) AND also EASILY (that's a requirement for me, remember?) allow you to export the video in whichever format and ASPECT RATIO necessary. :) Success!

I disregarded SimpleRotate at first because I am still very new to the Mac and did not - still do not - understand how files get managed in the libraries and projects of the iPhoto and iMovie world. [*shudder*]