How to rotate a video with windows media player

Sometimes a video looks right on your phone, but you try to back it up on your computer and it's sideways, or even upside down. 

It seems like it should be a simple problem to fix without having to resort to using video-editing software. Unfortunately, you can't rotate a video directly in the Windows Media Player. 

But there are still options. You can rotate the video using the video editor in the Photos app on Windows 10, or by using an alternative media player like the open-source VLC media player.

Here's how to do it, so you can play your rotated video in the Windows Media Player. 

1. If you are using Windows 10, click the Windows symbol at the bottom left of your screen and type "Video Editor." It should come up and look like a default app. Click on it to open the video editor part of the Photos app. 

3. On the blank new project, either drag the video you wish to rotate into the project library, or click the "+Add" button, select "From this PC," and find the video file you wish to rotate. 

4. Drag the video from the project library into the timeline at the bottom. This should give you a preview window of the video you're editing on the right side of the application.

5. Pressing Ctrl + R will rotate the video 90 degrees clockwise. Alternatively, you can find and click the "Rotate" button in the application window.

6. Select "Finish video" from the top right of the application, select a quality setting from "low" to "high," and save the video to the destination folder you want to find it in. 

VLC media player is also available free online, and comes with the option to rotate video, as well as being able to play more file types than Windows Media Player. 

If you're rotating more than one video then installing and using VLC instead might be more convenient.

1.Go to www.videolan.org/vlc/index.html and click the bright orange "Download VLC" button. It should scan your operating system and give you the correct version of the software you need. After clearing that you are okay with accepting cookies, the installer program should begin downloading.

2. Follow the instructions to install the VLC software.

3. Open VLC player and drag the video you want to rotate onto the application, or in the top toolbar select Media and then select Open file to find the video on your computer.

4. From the top toolbar select "Tools" and then select "Effects and Filters" from the drop down menu. This menu should be "Ctrl + E" by default.

5. Go to the Video Effects tab of the resulting pop-up window, and then in the tab below select Geometry. You may have to click the little arrow to scroll across to it.

6. Now click the checkbox for rotate, and it will allow you to rotate the video along a full 360 degrees. Drag the wheel around until you correct the video to the desired angle. Remember to hit "save" before you hit close.

While Windows Media Player itself does not have the easy feature you were looking for, hopefully these alternative programs provide you with a painless alternative to get the end result you need.

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