I recorded a video clip on my Nikon but I turned the lens to get a
vertical shot rather than the standard horizontal display. When I play
back the clip in Quicktime or Windows media player it appears sideways
so I have to turn my head to the side to view it.
QUESTION: is there an easy way to rotate the file (or the viewer) so
that it will appear vertically - as you can with any photo image editor
(Photoshop etc) for still shots??

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Request for Question Clarification by keystroke-ga on 04 Aug 2006 04:14 PDT

You may want to look at this software
http://www.adobe.com/products/premiere/

It is expensive but it is one of the best video editing suites I have used.

This software may also give you the same functionality.
http://www.adobe.com/products/premiereel/

Both have TRY NOW options so you dont have to buy unless you really want to.

--Keystroke-ga

The following steps work with .avi files.  As far as I can tell .mov
files are not compatible with VirtualDub.

1.   Download VirtualDub

  http://virtualdub.sourceforge.net/

2.  Decompress it to a convenient location.  Double-click
VirtualDub.exe inside the uncompressed directory to run the program.

3.  To open your video file go to 

    File > Open video file...

4.  To select the entire video 

    Edit > Select all

5.  To apply the rotation filter

    Video > Filters...

    Click Add...

    Scroll down to "rotate" and click OK

    Specify appropriate angle and click ok

6.  To specify compression settings

    Video > Compression

7.  To save the new rotated video

    File > Save as Avi...


Depending on the length of the video this could take a while.

The easiest way to do it is to use Windows Movie Maker Pro which is
bundles with Windows XP Professional. Open the program (in
Accessories). Click file; click import; find your video in the file
browser that pops-up; click ok. A thumbnail of your file will appear.
Drag it into the timeline. There are hundreds of effects you can apply
to it in the Tools menu such as rotate 90degrees, 180 etc etc. Select
the effect you want and drag it on top of the clip. When totally
finished and pleased with the effect, click file; click save as movie
and follow the wizard to save your new rotated movie.