iPhone 4 Photo's & Video Rotating Sideways In Email

When people are having issues, and they go to a thread to find a solution, why don't they bother to read the entire thread, ESPECIALLY WHEN THE ANSWER IS IN THE THREAD!!!

http://discussions.apple.com/message.jspa?messageID=12482172#12482172

I have the same problem. When I copy video over to my PC, if they were not shot in landscape mode at the correct orientation, they will either be upside down or sideways. The UI on the phone rotates with the physical orientation of the phone, however the video does not. Some have made the argument that this is the way it should be because you could be videoing upside down on purpose. However if this is the case they should have an option to turn this off if desired. At the least they should change the UI so that it is obvious when you are recording upside down or sideways.

To add more confusion to this the correct landscape orientation is different depending on what camera is beind used on the iPhone 4. So if you are using the camera on the back of the phone the correct orientation is landscape with the home button on the right. If you are using the camera on the front of the phone the correct orientation is landscape with the home button on the left. Hopefully there will be a fix for this to at least be able to shoot video in portrait mode!

Just wanted to let you know that I have this problem too. You are not alone. Looks like there are a bunch of people with this issue. Everyone says that all iphones are like this, but I got my IP4 a week ago, and before that I never had to rotate my 3G any certain way to get the pics to turn out the way I wanted. When I turn the ip4 sideways to take a pic, I want it to show as landscape in my camera roll...right now if I showed anyone my pics, they would have to crane their necks sideways to see my pics. Unacceptable.

Same issue here with the few iPhones 4s we have. Any playback on a Windows PC is sideways, unless you're using Quicktime, which will play it in the correct orientation. The only workarounds I've found is either using Quicktime, or using Windows Live Movie Maker to rotate the video. The problem with Movie Maker is that you have to save it as a wmv after you've rotated it.

http://techierambles.blogspot.com/2010/10/iphone-video-always-shows-sideways-aka .html

I mostly work on Macs, so am not expert here.

But I have had troubles with PCs reading the correct orientation of photos before.

It might be that the Quicktime tag to tell your player the orientation is not read by your standard video player.
When I open "vertical" videos in vlc they play wrongly rotated as you have.

But Quicktime player plays them correctly.

I would suggest this is not an iphone issue, but your video player not 'reading' all the quicktime tags.
The best thing to do is contact the company that makes your video software and complaining to them.

Or rotate with another program as described above.

I don't have this issue. I am wondering how many people who have this problem are using Windows as I think that possibly some Windows software may not be recognizing the rotation. The iPhone may be using a method to indicate the orientation that some software does not recognize. I think that the reason some people don't see this problem is that if they are on a Mac, most video output is based on Quicktime. Agree with the work-around of using editing software to rotate the video.

One question. If the orientation is already correct for you in Quicktime, how are you rotating it to make it correct in other programs, or do you just need to export it to fix it?

If I am correct and it's a "rotation tag" that the iPhone uses to mark the rotation, I'm not sure there is an easy fix for them to implement, unless there's another way that the rotation can be marked that is more recognizable.

I use a GoPro helmet cam for recording video as well and they recently added recording upside down to support mounting the camera different ways. I don't know if I'll ever use this though, because it's easier to flip the video in my desktop software than navigate to the setting on the camera.

I just had this issue with one of my video clips from a recent wedding reception. I always shoot in landscape mode and all clips played back fine in MPEG Streamclip except for one of them. It plays with the video frame rotated 90 degrees CW. VLC on the other hand, plays the clip correctly. You are correct that there is some type of orientation flag bit in the file header. I just need to find and change it for this one clip.

BTW, as for your GoPro camera, the upside down thing is useful if you want to 'hang' the camera from something. That way, your video is recorded right side up. I have a GoPro also and have used that new feature a couple times already.

Apple sets the jpeg meta tag for orientation when you shoot a photo, so if you hold the iphone upside down, or sideways, etc, the image (which is shot upside down or sideways, since the camera is upside down/sideways) knows it needs to flip/rotate the image when you look at it.

Not all software honors the rotation settings. Gimp (which runs on everything, and is free) does.

You can rotate images and save them, or learn to shoot photos with the iPhone in the correct orientation for non-rotated images. That would be with the home button to the right as you look at the screen.

this really doesnt help the problem the fact is if you take a picture normally in portraight mode and try to email it it shows correctly before you send the email but when the person receives it it turns it sideways

Yep. I have the same problem. The email draft on the iPhone 4 shows the picture upright -- but everyone gets it sideways. It has nothing to do with whether the recipient has a Mac or a PC. It must be a bug in the iPhone Mail program.

Has anyone gotten a fix or a workaround from Apple?

I think I have the answer to why this rotation problem occurs. The Iphone 4 that I have establishes the orientation of the movie when you push the record button. If you push it with the camera in the wrong orientation, then the whole movie will be taken in the orientation that was established WHEN THE RECORD BUTTON WAS PUSHED. The answer I found is that you hold the camera in the orientation you want AS YOU PUSH THE RECORD BUTTON. You do not notice this problem while you take the movie, it is only apparent when you play it back.