Show IH: ClipTurn — video rotation that actually verifies the result
Hey Indie Hackers — I just launched ClipTurn, a free Windows 11 app for fixing videos that were recorded sideways.
Most video tools change an orientation flag and hope every player, editor, and site respects it. ClipTurn physically rotates the stored picture, so the new orientation travels with the file.
The safety model was the real project:
• It builds a separate candidate locally, checks it, and only then replaces the source.
• It works from File Explorer (right-click → Rotate left/right), or from the app when you want a preview, details, and optional backups.
• Batch Rotate gives each file its own outcome instead of treating the whole batch as all-or-nothing.
• If it cannot prove a faithful replacement—because of a codec, track, subtitle, metadata, or container limitation—it leaves the original untouched and explains why. Where appropriate, it offers reviewed separate-copy options.
Everything stays on your PC: no account, uploads, analytics, or codec/quality settings to decode. ClipTurn is currently free in the Microsoft Store.
One important bit of honesty: normal compressed video is decoded, rotated, and re-encoded to a quality-preserving target; only eligible uncompressed AVI can be rotated sample-exactly. Explorer rotations replace the original only after verification, so irreplaceable media should still be copied first.
Website: https://clipturn.app/
Microsoft Store: https://apps.microsoft.com/detail/9PGB9JVBRGLB
86-second tutorial: https://youtu.be/-_kdhLjnPy0
I’d love feedback from anyone who has wrestled with phone footage or camera clips that play sideways: what would make you trust a “fix in place” video tool?
The verification-first approach is unusually deliberate for such a small utility.
I like that the product’s definition of “done” includes knowing when not to touch the original file.
Thank you, that’s exactly the philosophy behind ClipTurn. A refusal is intentionally treated as a valid outcome: if ClipTurn can’t verify that the result is a faithful replacement, leaving the original untouched is better than taking the risk.
That said, it supports a vast majority of formats, so ideally those refusals should be the exception rather than the norm. There’s also an override option for cases where you still want to proceed, but using it will always create a new file rather than overwrite the original.
That’s a solid product principle. If you’re open to it, what’s the best email to reach you on?