How to get orientation of a video file in Python

I would like to load frames of video files into a numpy array. I want the frames to be correctly vertical, which means I need to read the orientation metadata in the video file and rotate the loaded frames accordingly.

I have a way to load frames (opencv python bindings), so all I need is a way to read the orientation metadata of video files.

I am trying to read a .MOV file recorded from my iPhone in python running on an Ubuntu 14.04 machine.

Stuff I was looking at:

• opencv: no way to check video orientation
• hachoir-metadata: does not display targeting enzyme metadata
• : only works with .mkv files, AFAICT.
• ffmpeg: No longer available as a standalone executable in the Ubuntu repositories. This is a rogue, as I would rather just manually specify the rotation rather than running into the problem of compiling ffmpeg from source to get the orientation of the video.
• PIL, pyexiv: AFAICT, only downloads image files.

I am running the code on an Ubuntu 14.04 machine, so I am looking for libraries or command line programs available on that platform.

Any pointers would be greatly appreciated.