Video orientation issues when exporting with AVMutableVideoComposition

Question

Here is the function I used to export video:

- (void) videoOutput
{
//1 - Early exit if there's no video file selected
if (!self.videoAsset) {
    UIAlertView *alert = [[UIAlertView alloc] initWithTitle:@"Error" message:@"Please Load a Video Asset First"
                                                   delegate:nil cancelButtonTitle:@"OK" otherButtonTitles:nil];
    [alert show];
    return;
}

// 2 - Create AVMutableComposition object. This object will hold your AVMutableCompositionTrack instances.
AVMutableComposition *mixComposition = [[AVMutableComposition alloc] init];

// 3 - Video track
AVMutableCompositionTrack *videoTrack = [mixComposition addMutableTrackWithMediaType:AVMediaTypeVideo
                                                                    preferredTrackID:kCMPersistentTrackID_Invalid];
[videoTrack insertTimeRange:CMTimeRangeMake(kCMTimeZero, self.videoAsset.duration)
                    ofTrack:[[self.videoAsset tracksWithMediaType:AVMediaTypeVideo] objectAtIndex:0]
                     atTime:kCMTimeZero error:nil];

// 3.1 - Create AVMutableVideoCompositionInstruction
AVMutableVideoCompositionInstruction *mainInstruction = [AVMutableVideoCompositionInstruction videoCompositionInstruction];
mainInstruction.timeRange = CMTimeRangeMake(kCMTimeZero, self.videoAsset.duration);

// 3.2 - Create an AVMutableVideoCompositionLayerInstruction for the video track and fix the orientation.
AVMutableVideoCompositionLayerInstruction *videolayerInstruction = [AVMutableVideoCompositionLayerInstruction videoCompositionLayerInstructionWithAssetTrack:videoTrack];
AVAssetTrack *videoAssetTrack = [[self.videoAsset tracksWithMediaType:AVMediaTypeVideo] objectAtIndex:0];

BOOL isVideoAssetPortrait_  = NO;
CGAffineTransform videoTransform = videoAssetTrack.preferredTransform;
if (videoTransform.a == 0 && videoTransform.b == 1.0 && videoTransform.c == -1.0 && videoTransform.d == 0) {
    isVideoAssetPortrait_ = YES;
}
if (videoTransform.a == 0 && videoTransform.b == -1.0 && videoTransform.c == 1.0 && videoTransform.d == 0) {

    isVideoAssetPortrait_ = YES;
}
if (videoTransform.a == 1.0 && videoTransform.b == 0 && videoTransform.c == 0 && videoTransform.d == 1.0) {
    isVideoAssetPortrait_  = NO;
}
if (videoTransform.a == -1.0 && videoTransform.b == 0 && videoTransform.c == 0 && videoTransform.d == -1.0) {
    isVideoAssetPortrait_  = NO;
}
[videolayerInstruction setTransform:videoAssetTrack.preferredTransform atTime:kCMTimeZero];
[videolayerInstruction setOpacity:0.0 atTime:self.videoAsset.duration];

// 3.3 - Add instructions
mainInstruction.layerInstructions = [NSArray arrayWithObjects:videolayerInstruction,nil];

AVMutableVideoComposition *mainCompositionInst = [AVMutableVideoComposition videoComposition];

CGSize naturalSize;
if(isVideoAssetPortrait_){
    naturalSize = CGSizeMake(videoAssetTrack.naturalSize.height, videoAssetTrack.naturalSize.width);
} else {
    naturalSize = videoAssetTrack.naturalSize;
}

mainCompositionInst.renderSize = naturalSize;
mainCompositionInst.instructions = [NSArray arrayWithObject:mainInstruction];
mainCompositionInst.frameDuration = CMTimeMake(1, 30);

// 4 - Get path
NSArray *paths = NSSearchPathForDirectoriesInDomains(NSDocumentDirectory, NSUserDomainMask, YES);
NSString *documentsDirectory = [paths objectAtIndex:0];
NSString *myPathDocs =  [documentsDirectory stringByAppendingPathComponent:
                         [NSString stringWithFormat:@"FinalVideo-%d.mov",arc4random() % 1000]];
NSURL *url = [NSURL fileURLWithPath:myPathDocs];

// 5 - Create exporter
AVAssetExportSession *exporter = [[AVAssetExportSession alloc] initWithAsset:mixComposition
                                                                  presetName:AVAssetExportPresetHighestQuality];
exporter.outputURL=url;
exporter.outputFileType = AVFileTypeQuickTimeMovie;
exporter.shouldOptimizeForNetworkUse = YES;
exporter.videoComposition = mainCompositionInst;
[exporter exportAsynchronouslyWithCompletionHandler:^{
    dispatch_async(dispatch_get_main_queue(), ^{
        [self exportDidFinish:exporter];
    });
}];
}

The problem is that the first time I use this function to export a portrait video, the variable videoTransform (videoAssetTrack.preferredTransform) are:

videoTransform.a == 0 && videoTransform.b == 1.0 && videoTransform.c == -1.0 && videoTransform.d == 0

And the variable isVideoAssetPortrait_ equals YES. Everything is right. However, after exporting completed and saved to Camera Roll, I used this function reload the result video. This time, the videoTransform changed:

videoTransform.a == 1.0 && videoTransform.b == 0 && videoTransform.c == 0 && videoTransform.d == 1.0

And isVideoAssetPortrait_ equals NO. It means that after one time export, the videoTransform has changed it's values (orientation from portrait -> landscape)

I googled many questions about video orientation of AV Foundation, but there hasn't found the solution yet.

Thank you for reading my long explanation. If you have any question, please let me know.

Answer 1

There is no such concept as portrait/landscape regarding the video tracks. It has just it's dimensions and a transformation applied in order to present it properly. By default the "portrait" video is encoded as it is produced by the camera (let say landscape) and a 90 degrees rotation used to present it properly.

When you export it, it's orientation is not changed, it is just recoded physically rotated, so no rotation is needed to present it properly. This is why you get the identity matrix on the second time (it not means that it was changed from portrait to landscape), but this time the it's natural size is also swapped, and everything should be okay based on your code.

Please specify what's wrong in the later case.