Video playing sideways after burning to DVD

Question

So I recorded some videos on my Motorola Droid Turbo. I downloaded them to my computer. They play perfect when I play them on my computer. When I burn them to DVD and try to play them in a DVD player, they play, BUT SIDEWAYS. I really need to get these videos burned to a DVD so I can send the DVD to the people who I recorded them for. They are very large files and can not be emailed.

I used NERO Burning ROM. The videos are MP4

Solution

The problem you are having is that your phone sets a "flag" in the video properties that tells the player software that it was taken in a particular orientation and that is the orientation in which is should play. However, DVD players do not support that, since the DVD video specification predates video from cell phones.

You probably need to use a video editing application to actually rotate the video and save it. Note that it is likely that this will reduce the quality of the video.

The application I used to recommend for this, Windows Live Movie Maker, is no longer available. HowToGeek has instructions for doing it with VLC Media Player, but I have not tried them so I don't know whether to recommend them or not. Any video editing program (there are lots of free and paid options) should be able to help you.

Comments

[Admin]

Did you made a DVD-Video or just a DVD-ROM with the files inside?

[Admin]

Pretty sure I made a DVD ROM with the files inside.

[Admin]

To make a dvd video the files need to be something other than mp4.

[Admin]

Then the problem is at the DVD player. The support for different video file formats is a non-standard feature (as in extra) of some players and depends on the device's firmware. So, probably, there's nothing you can do about it.

[Admin]

And it makes this question off-topic in this website.

[Admin]

If you want to send them online (even though they are so large), you might consider WeTransfer.com. I use them all the time for sending large files like videos, and they are really good at what they do. Plus they are free and they have a great privacy policy. (I am not affiliated with WeTransfer, just a happy user.)

[Admin]

Let us continue this discussion in chat.

[Admin]

They are very large files and can not be emailed. - can you just send them over the bittorrent network? bittorrent have no practical size limit, features concurrent multiple-connection transfers, transfer resume, checksum verification, and more (like, among other things, having all clients transfer between each others so you don't have to upload to each recipient individually)

[Admin]

All the suggestions about how to send the files are great but if the files are expected to play in the same or similar DVD player then the problem will be the same. I'm afraid many people are focusing too much on the package (irrelevant) and not in its contents. How the files end up in the DVD player doesn't matter.

[Admin]

@GabrielaGarcia I think that's because with the information given, the package aspect is important here. He talks about getting the files to the people he recorded them for; and his only reason given for not emailing was the file size. This highly suggests that they do not need it in DVD format; but just need the data transferred to their possession. Suggesting transfer alternatives seems very valid here IMO.

[Admin]

@JMac I agree with you. But asking about products/services would also be off-topic. Commenting about such alternatives seems fine to me regardless.

[Admin]

@GabrielaGarcia That's my point; I only see it in comments so it looks fine. The interesting part of the question is definitely still related to how it plays in DVD format. Sometimes a solution can sidestep the question completely though; since the question isn't directly related to the actual problem.

[Nathan Merrill]

Why would the quality change? The player still has to do the rotation of the video (except it is in real-time).

[sbecker]

Apparently Windows Movie Maker can still be downloaded from the WaybackMachine answers.microsoft.com/en-us/windowslive/forum/gallery-progra‌​m/… And it still works with Windows 10. Too bad Microsoft pulled the original download link.

[David Foerster]

@NathanMerrill: To play back videos at the correct orientation on video players that don't support rotation based on metadata one needs to re-encode the video at the desired orientation. Re-encoding with a lossy video codec always involves video degradation by its nature. Lossless video codecs are mostly out of the question since the amount of data would be rather large and to my knowledge the DVD spec includes no lossless video codec.

[Moshe Katz]

@NathanMerrill because the most common reason for rotation is vertical video, in which case rotating it to play on a dvd player will reduce the resolution significantly and add black bars.

[phyrfox]

@DavidFoerster It's my understanding that mp4 uses a variant of jpeg compression, which takes 4x4 or 8x8 blocks and compresses them. You are allowed to rotate these blocks 90, 180, or 270 degrees and re-encode without any loss of data. I don't have the necessary software or patience to try and confirm this, but I don't believe your statement is accurate.

[Mavrik]

@phyrfox - while I/IDR frames of H.264 format (most commonly found in MP4 files and recorded by mobile phones) might be distantly related to the JPEG compression, most frames in a video aren't stored in such a way. P and B frames really don't handle blocks in such a simple way and rotating the video pretty much requires a full reencode. Even if there might be a way to fudge all stored data structures in a way to rotate images, pretty much all video software will opt for a simple process of decoding, rotating and reencoding the video.

[Random Davis]

@phyrfox do you know of any currently available software which has the ability to do that?

[hobbs]

@Mavrik it's absolutely possible... but yeah, I doubt that any extant software does it.

[Damon]

@phyrfox: While lossless 90° rotation is possible for keyframes with DCT-based encodings, it is much harder (not impossible, but a real challenge) to do on difference frames, and you're practically guaranteed that no software that you'll be able to find is able to generally do that kind of thing. Also, given just "MP4" you don't even necessarily know what encoding is used at all.

[phyrfox]

Thanks for the comments. I've learned something new today.