Rotating videos with FFmpeg

Rotate 90 clockwise:

ffmpeg -i in.mov -vf "transpose=1" out.mov

For the transpose parameter you can pass:

0 = 90CounterCLockwise and Vertical Flip (default)
1 = 90Clockwise
2 = 90CounterClockwise
3 = 90Clockwise and Vertical Flip

Use -vf "transpose=2,transpose=2" for 180 degrees.

Make sure you use a recent ffmpeg version from here (a static build will work fine).

Note that this will re-encode the audio and video parts. You can usually copy the audio without touching it, by using -c:a copy. To change the video quality, set the bitrate (for example with -b:v 1M) or have a look at the H.264 encoding guide if you want VBR options.

A solution is also to use this convenience script.

An additional solution with a different approach from the last mentioned solutions, is to check if your camera driver support the v4l2 camera controls (which is very common).
In the terminal just type:

v4l2-ctl -L

If your camera driver supports the v4l2 camera controls, you should get something like this (the list below depends on the controls that your camera driver supports):

               contrast (int)    : min=0 max=255 step=1 default=0 value=0 flags=slider
             saturation (int)    : min=0 max=255 step=1 default=64 value=64 flags=slider
                    hue (int)    : min=0 max=359 step=1 default=0 value=0 flags=slider
white_balance_automatic (bool)   : default=1 value=1 flags=update
            red_balance (int)    : min=0 max=4095 step=1 default=0 value=128 flags=inactive, slider
           blue_balance (int)    : min=0 max=4095 step=1 default=0 value=128 flags=inactive, slider
               exposure (int)    : min=0 max=65535 step=1 default=0 value=885 flags=inactive, volatile
         gain_automatic (bool)   : default=1 value=1 flags=update
                   gain (int)    : min=0 max=1023 step=1 default=0 value=32 flags=inactive, volatile
        horizontal_flip (bool)   : default=0 value=0
          vertical_flip (bool)   : default=0 value=0

And if you are lucky it supports horizontal_flip and vertical_flip.
Then all you need to do is to set the horizontal_flip by:

v4l2-ctl --set-ctrl horizontal_flip=1

or the vertical_flip by:

v4l2-ctl --set-ctrl vertical_flip=1

and then you can call your video device to capture a new video (see example below), and the video will be rotated/flipped.

ffmpeg -f v4l2 -video_size 640x480 -i /dev/video0 -vcodec libx264 -f mpegts input.mp4

Of-course that if you need to process an already existing video, than this method is not the solution you are looking for.

The advantage in this approach is that we flip the image in the sensor level, so the sensor of the driver already gives us the image flipped, and that's saves the application (like FFmpeg) any further and unnecessary processing.

Since ffmpeg transpose command is very slow, use the command below to rotate a video by 90 degrees clockwise.

Fast command (Without encoding)-

ffmpeg -i input.mp4 -c copy -metadata:s:v:0 rotate=270 output.mp4

For full video encoding (Slow command, does encoding)

ffmpeg -i inputFile -vf "transpose=1" -c:a copy outputFile

I had the same problem as OP, getting the No such filter: 'rotate' error, even though the rotate filter shows as supported in --filters. I needed to rotate by an arbitrary angle, and so all the current answers which are alternatives to rotating by a multiple of 90 degrees didn't work. I figured out that the syntax for -vf requires spaces around the tokens, which is contrary to the official docs.

changing:

-vf 'rotate=1.23'

to

-vf 'rotate = 1.23' got it to work for me.

Full example:

ffmpeg.exe -i input.mp4 -vf "rotate = 3.0 , crop = 1920:1080" out.mp4

FWIW this is on ffmpeg version 4.3.2

Smartphone: Recored a video in vertical format

Want to send it to a webside it was 90° to the left (anti clockwise, landscape format) hmm.

ffmpeg -i input.mp4 -vf "rotate=0" output.mp4

does it. I got vertical format back again

debian buster: ffmpeg --version ffmpeg version 4.1.4-1~deb10u1 Copyright (c) 2000-2019 the FFmpeg developers

For me it works like this

Rotate clockwise

 ffmpeg -i "path_source_video.mp4" -filter:v "transpose=1" "path_output_video.mp4"

Rotate counterclockwise

 ffmpeg -i "path_source_video.mp4" -filter:v "transpose=0,transpose=1,transpose=0" -acodec copy "path_output_video.mp4"

the package I use zeranoe