Can anyone tell me if Quicktime Pro retains aspect ratio once a video is rotated?

Question

I'm reluctant to purchase Quicktime Pro until I know the answer to this question and Apple Support doesn't seem to have anyway to ask, so I thought I'd try this group.
I took some videos with my iPhone (the long way), and need to be able to rotate them and convert them to avi files.  I understand that Quicktime Pro can do the rotation and conversion, but I saw one review that said the aspect ratio is not retained, i.e. the video comes out flattend (wider).
Can anyone tell me if this is still true with QT Pro, or if there are other solutions for resolving this outside of QT Pro??  I have tried a number of other converters, and found one that rotates, but aspect ratio not retained.
Thanks in advance for any help shared!!!

Answer 1

I took some videos with my iPhone (the long way), and need to be able to rotate them and convert them to avi files.  I understand that Quicktime Pro can do the rotation and conversion, but I saw one review that said the aspect ratio is not retained, i.e. the video comes out flattend (wider).
This may or may not depend on your specific work flow. Many "settings' saved to the original file by QT 7 Pro are merely "playback instructions" which may or may not play correctly in other media players while these same settings do work properly when saved/converted to a new file container. In addition, not being a Windows user, I don't know if there are are any significant differences between the Mac and Windows versions of QT 7. In any case, I just took a short sample clip, stored it on my hard drive via Aperture 3, opened the file in QT 7 Pro, rotated the clip in QT 7 Pro, and used the "Save As..." command to store the modified file. This modified file now plays correctly in current versions of the QT 7, MPEG Streamclip, and VLC media players. Have uploaded a copy of this file so you can download it, test playback in various players you normally use, and/or test convert it to your specific AVI audio and video compression formats.
SAMPLE ROTATED FILE
Can anyone tell me if this is still true with QT Pro, or if there are other solutions for resolving this outside of QT Pro??  I have tried a number of other converters, and found one that rotates, but aspect ratio not retained.
As indicated above, the file plays correctly for me in various media players and all media "Inspector" windows, including other third party media information utilities, confirm the correct dimensions and aspect ratio as displayed. As to AVI conversion, I test converted the uploaded file to AVI (DivX5/MP3) at original dimensions using VisualHub. (Also tried the VideoMonkey AVI encode but it limited the source 720p file to a 720x480 output and I did not know if you were agreeable to such a restriction.) Suggest you run similar tests with your preferred Windows converters to confirm/refute results on your system.