Sunday, December 11, 2011

iPhone Recorded Video Problems

“Someone I know” recorded some video on the iPhone of a special family moment. They held the iPhone up and down as you would usually hold it (except when watching a movie or YouTube, etc.).

I moved the video off the phone, in order to share it with family and friends. I discovered not only was the aspect ratio of the video backwards, but the video played sideways (correcting the aspect issue) in most standard video-playing software (besides iTunes and Quicktime).

So I thought “Handbrake” of course, because I was planning to make the file size smaller for uploading anyhow. Long story short I was frustrated and denied that day. I ended up settling for WMVs from Windows Live Movie Maker, and they came out awful.

Fast forward a couple of months (sometimes it helps to let a problem stew for awhile). Some more Google searches, and I came across a free, open source tool called “avidemux” (http://avidemux.sourceforge.net). It flipped the video (back to being taller than wider) and then even allowed me to crop (the top and bottom of) the video so as to fix the aspect ratio. Genius!

So if you happened to take video with the iPhone up and down, and want to share it but either the non-standard aspect ratio is a problem, or the video appears flipped on it’s side, try avidemux.

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