Converting or using mp4

October 22, 2017 2:48 PM

Technology has passed me by. I used to record a lot of video using the mp2 format, which worked fine in Windows Moviemaker and Adobe Premier. But my smartphone records in mp4 and one of the things mp4 forces me to do is rotate the video 90 degrees so that its in the correct orientation.

I don't have software to rotate the video and can't seem to find any. Plus, I can't make this mp4 video work in any of my editing software. First, should the software import and edit mp4 and second, should it also be able to rotate the video without distorting it, or do I need to use some kind of converter? I've got a ton of video shot like this and I don't want it ending up on the shelf like old episodes of Murder She Wrote.

posted by CollectiveMind to Media & Arts (4 answers total)

Can you at least open and view the video files, in a player, even if you can't edit it? Try right-clicking and opening it with each of your web browsers; web browsers can usually directly open .mp4 video.
posted by XMLicious at 3:37 PM on October 22, 2017

MPEG Streamclip is free and can edit and rotate MP4s (Windows and OS X only).
posted by pompomtom at 4:40 PM on October 22, 2017 [1 favorite]

There are a few open source video editors, some of which will run on Windows. They generally support MP4 directly. There are some native video editors like VirtualDub that will use any codec you have installed, but they often have limited file format support even if they can understand the codec.

That said, if there's a version of AviSynth that supports MP4, rotation is a matter of a single line script.
posted by wierdo at 4:48 PM on October 22, 2017

Install ffmpeg and then follow these instructions.
posted by adamrice at 8:51 PM on October 22, 2017 [1 favorite]