First and foremost, it's important to note that DaVinci Resolve 18 currently does not offer a straightforward method to rotate your entire project upon export. Therefore, I am presenting a free third-party solution using the command-line version of ffmpeg.
In this usage example, ffmpeg changes only the metadata, which means your export will not be re-encoded, and you will not lose any quality.
Please avoid workarounds such as inserting your horizontal timeline into a new timeline with a vertical aspect ratio, or re-encoding the final export with tools like HandBrake. These methods will lead to a loss in quality.
After downloading ffmpeg from here, unzip it and copy ffmpeg.exe
to your preferred location.
Open your preferred console and navigate to the directory where you placed ffmpeg.exe
. Use the following command to rotate your video 270° counterclockwise, replacing input.mp4
with the name or path of your exported video file:
ffmpeg.exe -display_rotation 270 -i input.mp4 -codec copy output.mp4
The ffmpeg command was sourced from Stack Overflow. It has been successfully tested with a horizontal .mp4 video, rotating it 270° to transform it into a vertical format suitable for uploading to Instagram.