One I have not seen before - sideways videos

We just had a person to join (7.1.4 site with some modifications with third party modules) and the videos they uploaded were sideways.  Now I have heard about the sideways photo problem but sideways videos is a new one to me.  The member claims the videos uploaded to other sites were not sideways on the other sites.  So, I am guessing something about the device used; which I don't know at this time, and ffmpeg recoding the video?  Anyone seen this issue before.

OK, here is a link: https://coderwall.com/p/u1zd9q

If you read through, you will see where the EXIF can contain the orientation of the video; then we would need to pass that to ffmpeg to properly code the resultant video to have the correct orientation.  Why one would record a video in portrait mode when screens for video playback are wide is anyone's guess; I have never seen a theatre with a tall narrow screen.

Another article:

http://phayz.wordpress.com/2011/10/28/howto-rotate-a-video-using-ffmpeg/

So any idea on how to have it so that users can upload sideways video and have ffmpeg rotate them?

First thought was turning the Monitor 90 degrees clockwise or counter-clockwise until video appears normal. HAHA

On a slightly more serious note, why would anyone try to upload a sideways video to begin with. Videos are easily turned using most any type of viewer. For example, you can use VLC player to rotate a video and then re-save it. 

I certainly would be interested in knowing this. Especially when members accidentally record their videos with ipad in the wrong landscape rotation and the uploaded video results in upside down. 

Yes, this seems to be a problem with iPhones and iPad users; and is most likely due to ignorance.  I think the mentioned devices may store the orientation in the EXIF but not sure as I can not test.  This could become an issue on some sites and the users may just be uploading directly without thinking about the orientation.  ffmpeg can handle rotation with a simple switch passed to it.  Not sure how involved it would be to somehow handled these sideways video uploads.  In our case we are going to download the videos, rotate them, and then upload back to the user's account.

I can see how being able to 'flip' or 'rotate' a video could be helpful like you can on some image tools / sites etc.

Tested http://www.boonex.com/m/Video_Masher to see if it can rotate videos, dang, nope. 

I swear, I saw somewhere that some scripts can automatically detect the correct orientation and change it... not here, though. 

There is nothing wrong with iOS. It's user's error. Why locked orientation in the first place? They need to unlocked orientation before filming otherwise it's gonna look sideway or upside-down.

Now, if we had a tool to rotate which I think is very helpful. My concern is watermark, I suggest that someone or Boonex to create this tool to rotate after uploading and before applying watermark.

Some devices do save the orientation of the video in the EXIF file as I stated above.  Some programmes will read this EXIF data and use it to rotate the image automatically.  ffmpeg can rotate videos.  To try and have this feature in Boonex would mean the uploader for videos would need to read the EXIF data if it exists and then extract the orientation if it exists and then pass that along to ffmpeg to rotate the video.

What we can do is to either have a developer try to code this in a module, or have Boonex place it on a "to do" list of features to add to Dolphin.

GG, have you found anything new about this? 

Shall I create a ticket on this? 

No.  ffmpeg does have the ability to rotate a file.  This sideways video thing mostly comes from portable devices like phones and tablets although I can record a sideways video on my camera.  Videos can even be recorded upside down.  Some devices add an orientation to the EXIF but no all.  Simple solution could be to have a switch to pass to ffmpeg but it would have to be done before the upload; currently the way Dolphin handles videos and photos is to upload the video or photo first, then present the title description form AFTER THE FACT.  You would need the rotate on the upload form, not the form that is presented after the video is uploaded.  The best solution would be to try and read the EXIF file if it exists in the video and automatically rotate.  However, that still means that some videos could be uploaded that are recorded sideways.

Hopefully most people won't record in the wrong orientation.

There is free software available, such as Windows Movie Maker, that can be used to change the video orientation *before* the file is uploaded to the website.

Didn't see anything in changelog but did you try it with a recent version of ffmpeg? The one bundled in dolphin is really old.

Actually ffmpeg can rotate the video while it is being converted. This option is suppose to do it.

transpose=dir=1:passthrough=portrait

or can be specified like this.

transpose=1:portrait

What this does is rotate the video if it is recorded as landscape but will not if it's in portrait.

However i am not sure at what version of ffmpeg this was added to and even if the version dolphin includes supports it.

I also cannot test it myself. I do not own any mobile devices so i can run some tests.

Oh, and the current versions of ffmpeg and also read the stored metadata. It may be time for dolphin to upgrade ffmpeg depending on how out of date it currently is.

Funny, I actually started a build server last night to build an up-to-date version of FFmpeg for Dolphin.

Nate, is that still on your to-do list?  That would really be very handy to us ALL.

This thread has had no activity for a while, but I am interested on what it will take to make this work.

I tested a couple videos on my site and they were actually upside down!