Video Orientation / Rotation Detector
Quickly detect whether a video is portrait, landscape, or square and inspect its dimensions, aspect ratio, duration, resolution, rotation metadata, and other useful properties. Everything is processed directly in your browser.
Video Preview
Video Analysis
Captured Frame
About Video Orientation / Rotation Detector
Ever downloaded a video from your phone, camera, messaging app, or social media and wondered why it looks sideways, upside down, or has the wrong dimensions? That’s exactly the kind of problem the Video Orientation / Rotation Detector is designed to help with.
This free browser-based tool analyzes your video and tells you whether it is portrait, landscape, or square. It also shows the video's width, height, aspect ratio, resolution, duration, file size, file type, likely social-media format, and other useful information.
Why Would You Need a Video Orientation Detector?
Video orientation matters more than most people realize. A video can look perfectly normal on one device but appear sideways or incorrectly framed on another device, website, or social platform.
Before uploading a video to YouTube, TikTok, Instagram, Facebook, a website, a presentation, or another platform, it can be useful to know exactly what orientation and aspect ratio the video uses.
What Does This Tool Detect?
- ✔️ Portrait videos
- ✔️ Landscape videos
- ✔️ Square videos
- ✔️ Video width and height
- ✔️ Aspect ratio
- ✔️ Resolution category
- ✔️ Video duration
- ✔️ File size
- ✔️ File type
- ✔️ Common container/codec hints
- ✔️ Rotation information when detectable
- ✔️ Likely social-media format
- ✔️ Current playback position
- ✔️ Video frame capture
- ✔️ JSON analysis report
How to Use the Video Orientation Detector
- Upload a video by clicking the upload button.
- You can also drag and drop a video onto the upload area.
- Wait a moment while the browser reads the video metadata.
- Review the orientation shown in the analysis panel.
- Check the width, height, aspect ratio, and resolution.
- Review the likely social-media format.
- Use the timeline to inspect different parts of the video.
- Capture a frame if you want to visually inspect the video.
- Copy or download the analysis report when needed.
Portrait vs Landscape vs Square
A portrait video is taller than it is wide. This is the orientation commonly used for vertical smartphone videos, Shorts, Reels, TikTok-style videos, and many mobile-first platforms.
A landscape video is wider than it is tall. This is the traditional format used by television, desktop video players, presentations, movies, and many YouTube videos.
A square video has approximately equal width and height and is commonly associated with square social-media content.
Common Video Aspect Ratios
| Aspect Ratio | Typical Use |
|---|---|
| 16:9 | YouTube, TV, desktop video, widescreen content |
| 9:16 | Short-form vertical video and mobile content |
| 1:1 | Square social-media content |
| 4:3 | Older cameras, television, presentations |
| 3:4 | Portrait photography and some social content |
| 21:9 | Cinematic and ultrawide video |
Why Is My Phone Video Sideways?
Modern smartphones can store orientation information separately from the actual pixel dimensions of a video. This means a video may contain landscape pixel dimensions while a player uses rotation information to display it vertically.
Browser support for reading low-level video rotation metadata is not identical across all browsers and video containers. For that reason, this tool reports information available through the browser and clearly separates metadata detection from the physical pixel orientation.
Preview Rotation
Use the 0°, 90°, 180°, and 270° buttons to rotate the preview when you want to visually inspect how the video would look under different orientations.
Preview rotation does not modify the original video file. It is simply a convenient way to inspect the content.
Frame Capture
The built-in frame capture feature allows you to capture the current video frame. Move the video to an interesting position using the timeline and click Capture Frame.
This can be particularly useful when checking whether the orientation is causing cropping, unusual framing, or black bars.
Useful for Social Media
The tool automatically compares the video's dimensions with common aspect ratios and provides a likely format such as 16:9 widescreen, 9:16 vertical, or 1:1 square.
This makes it useful for creators preparing videos for YouTube, Shorts, Reels, TikTok-style vertical content, websites, advertisements, and social posts.
Is This Tool Free?
Yes. The tool can be used directly in your browser.
Free users get 10 queries per tool per day for personal use only. This includes personal projects, school work, social-media content, hobbies, testing, and other non-commercial activities.
If you need unlimited usage or commercial rights, you can upgrade to Premium.
Premium Benefits
- 🔓 Unlimited queries per day
- ⚡ Priority processing
- 🚀 Commercial usage license
- 🎯 Access to all video tools without limits
Does the Tool Upload My Video?
No. Video analysis is performed directly inside your web browser using browser video capabilities.
Your video does not need to be uploaded to a server simply to determine its dimensions, duration, orientation, aspect ratio, or other browser-readable metadata.
Why Browser-Based Processing Is Useful
- ✔️ No software installation
- ✔️ No video upload required for basic analysis
- ✔️ Fast metadata inspection
- ✔️ Works on modern desktop browsers
- ✔️ Useful for large video collections
- ✔️ Convenient for creators
- ✔️ Helpful before uploading videos to other platforms
Who Should Use This Tool?
- ⭐ YouTubers
- ⭐ TikTok and short-form video creators
- ⭐ Instagram creators
- ⭐ Bloggers and website owners
- ⭐ Video editors
- ⭐ Social-media managers
- ⭐ Students
- ⭐ Photographers
- ⭐ Content agencies
- ⭐ Anyone organizing a video collection
Real-World Example
Imagine you have a video recorded on your smartphone. It appears vertical when you watch it on your phone, but after transferring it to your computer, you are not sure whether the actual video dimensions are 1080 × 1920, 1920 × 1080, or something else.
Upload the video here and the tool immediately shows its actual pixel dimensions and aspect ratio. You can then determine whether it is truly portrait or landscape and see which common social-media format it most closely matches.
Limitations
- Browser APIs do not expose every low-level video metadata field.
- Rotation metadata support can vary between browsers and video containers.
- Codec information may not be directly available through standard browser APIs.
- Very large videos may require more memory from your browser.
- The tool analyzes video information but does not permanently rotate or re-encode the original video.
- Free usage is capped at 10 queries per tool per day. Unlimited and commercial use requires Premium.
Analysis Report
After analyzing a video, you can copy the complete report to your clipboard or download it as a JSON file. This makes it useful when documenting video assets or checking large collections of files.
Summary of Features
| Free Users | Premium Users |
|---|---|
| ✔️ 10 queries/day | 🔓 Unlimited queries/day |
| ✔️ Personal use only | 🔥 Commercial use allowed |
| ✔️ Browser-based processing | 🚀 Priority speed & performance |
| ✔️ Orientation detection | ⭐ Unlimited access |
| ✔️ Aspect ratio detection | ⭐ Unlimited tool usage |
| ✔️ Video metadata analysis | ⭐ Full commercial license |
| ❌ No commercial license | ✔️ Full commercial license |
Why smallvideotools.com?
Because useful video utilities should be simple, fast, and easy to understand. Instead of installing complicated video software just to answer a simple question about a video, you can use a focused browser-based tool.
Final Words
Whether you are checking a smartphone recording, preparing a YouTube video, organizing social-media content, or simply wondering why a video appears sideways, the Video Orientation / Rotation Detector gives you the information you need quickly.
Upload a video, inspect its orientation and dimensions, capture a frame, copy the report, and move on with your work.
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