EXIF orientation tag

I know that Windows Media Player does not utilize the EXIF orientation tag in jpeg photos to automatically rotated them. So on my desktop I use other viewing programs. I recently built an HTPC and networked it to the desktop & was hoping, but not counting on, something being different in Windows 7 Windows Media Center & it would properly display vertical photos. But of course it does not.

I know I'm grasping at straws here, but is there any plugin or add on for WMC that corrects this?

I can install another program on the HTPC but was trying to keep the number of programs to a bare minimum.

I've tried that. However it becomes a lossy rotation. From what I understand in order to have a lossless rotation the pixel count in both directions has to be a multiple of either 8 or 16 depending the chroma sub-sampling. And most of mine don't qualify.

I did try a permanent rotation & put them on an SD card and DVD and played them with my Blu-ray player. But they take a bit of time to load & display on the HDTV. When I put the original "sideways" jpegs on the SD card the images pop right up. You would think the permanently rotated ones would come up faster, but they don't.

I was also given a DVD with jpegs that have permanent rotation, but no EXIF orientation tag at all. They also pause & take a while to load & display. I have no idea why.

Maybe the system is expecting a certain picture ratio to have certain EXIF data, and when it doesn't there is a delay.

Every other program I have ever used utilizes the EXIF orientation tag. And I understand most of the industry does as this has been around for several years. Yet for some reason Microsoft does not. They let me view pictures with WMC but don't allow it to properly display them. Go figure.

I'll probably put IrfanView on the HTPC. It's small & fast.

I already have IrfanView on my desktop & it lists an option for lossless rotation. But everything I read states the following MCU requirement for lossless rotation.

ImpulseAdventure - JPEG Lossless Rotation with Partial MCU

Adobe Forums: Edit "JPEG" then "Save As" is destructive ????

Some of mine meet the requirement & some don’t. But again the ones that I “forced” rotation take a while to load & display. So I went back & replaced them with copies of the originals from my backup files. Now everything works as it should on the Blu-ray player & the PC, as long as I don’t use a Microsoft product.

I am not going to do a lossy rotation just for Microsoft. I just won’t use WMC on the HTPC when viewing photos.