3GP (3GPP file format) is a

multimedia Multimedia is a form of communication that uses a combination of different content forms such as text, audio, images, animations, or video into a single interactive presentation, in contrast to tradit ...

container format defined by the Third Generation Partnership Project (3GPP) for 3G

UMTS The Universal Mobile Telecommunications System (UMTS) is a third generation mobile cellular system for networks based on the GSM standard. Developed and maintained by the 3GPP (3rd Generation Partnership Project), UMTS is a component of the In ...

multimedia services. It is used on 3G

mobile phone A mobile phone, cellular phone, cell phone, cellphone, handphone, hand phone or pocket phone, sometimes shortened to simply mobile, cell, or just phone, is a portable telephone that can make and receive calls over a radio frequency link whi ...

s but can also be played on some 2G and 4G phones. 3G2 (3GPP2 file format) is a multimedia container format defined by the

3GPP2 The 3rd Generation Partnership Project 2 (3GPP2) is a collaboration between telecommunications associations to make a globally applicable third generation ( 3G) mobile phone system specification within the scope of the ITU's IMT-2000 project. In ...

for 3G CDMA2000 multimedia services. It is very similar to the 3GP file format but consumes less space & bandwidth also has some extensions and limitations in comparison to 3GP.

Specifications

3GP is defined in the ETSI 3GPP technical specification.ETSI 3GP
3GPP TS 26.244; Transparent end-to-end packet switched streaming service (PSS); 3GPP file format (3GP)
Retrieved on 2009-06-02. 3GP is a required file format for video and associated speech/audio media types and timed text in ETSI 3GPP technical specifications for IP Multimedia Subsystem (IMS), Multimedia Messaging Service (MMS), Multimedia Broadcast/Multicast Service (MBMS) and Transparent end-to-end Packet-switched Streaming Service ( PSS).ETSI (2009-01
ETSI TS 126 141 V8.0.0 (2009-01); 3GPP TS 26.141; IP Multimedia System (IMS) Messaging and Presence; Media formats and codecs
Page 10. Retrieved on 2009-06-02. 3G2 is defined in the

technical specification.

Technical details

The 3GP and 3G2 file formats are both structurally based on the

ISO base media file format The ISO base media file format (ISOBMFF) is a container file format that defines a general structure for files that contain time-based multimedia data such as video and audio. It is standardized in ISO/IEC 14496-12, a.k.a. MPEG-4 Part 12, and wa ...

defined in ISO/ IEC 14496-12 – MPEG-4 Part 12, but older versions of the 3GP file format did not use some of its features. 3GP and 3G2 are container formats similar to

MPEG-4 Part 14 MPEG-4 Part 14 or MP4 is a digital multimedia container format most commonly used to store video and audio, but it can also be used to store other data such as subtitles and still images. Like most modern container formats, it allows streaming ...

(MP4), which is also based on MPEG-4 Part 12. The 3GP and 3G2 file format were designed to decrease storage and bandwidth requirements to accommodate

s. They are good for lower end smartphones for faster streaming & download. 3GP and 3G2 are similar standards, but with some differences: * 3GPP file format was designed for

GSM The Global System for Mobile Communications (GSM) is a standard developed by the European Telecommunications Standards Institute (ETSI) to describe the protocols for second-generation ( 2G) digital cellular networks used by mobile devices such ...

-based phones and may have the filename extension .3gp *

file format was designed for

CDMA Code-division multiple access (CDMA) is a channel access method used by various radio communication technologies. CDMA is an example of multiple access, where several transmitters can send information simultaneously over a single communicatio ...

-based phones and may have the filename extension .3g2 Some cell phones use the .mp4 extension for 3GP video.

3GP

The 3GP file format stores video streams as

MPEG-4 Part 2 MPEG-4 Part 2, MPEG-4 Visual (formally ISO/ IEC 14496-2) is a video compression format developed by the Moving Picture Experts Group (MPEG). It belongs to the MPEG-4 ISO/IEC standards. It uses block-wise motion compensation and a discrete cosine ...

, H.263, or MPEG-4 Part 10 (AVC/H.264), and audio streams as

AMR-NB The Adaptive Multi-Rate (AMR, AMR-NB or GSM-AMR) audio codec is an audio compression format optimized for speech coding. AMR speech codec consists of a multi-rate narrowband speech codec that encodes narrowband (200–3400 Hz) signals at var ...

AMR-WB Adaptive Multi-Rate Wideband (AMR-WB) is a patented wideband speech audio coding standard developed based on Adaptive Multi-Rate encoding, using a similar methodology to algebraic code-excited linear prediction (ACELP). AMR-WB provides improved ...

, AMR-WB+,

AAC-LC Advanced Audio Coding (AAC) is an audio coding standard for lossy digital audio compression. Designed to be the successor of the MP3 format, AAC generally achieves higher sound quality than MP3 encoders at the same bit rate. AAC has been stand ...

, HE-AAC v1 or Enhanced aacPlus (HE-AAC v2). 3GPP allowed use of AMR and H.263 codecs in the ISO base media file format (MPEG-4 Part 12), because 3GPP specified the usage of the Sample Entry and template fields in the ISO base media file format as well as defining new boxes to which codecs refer. These extensions were registered by the registration authority for code-points in ISO base media file format ("MP4 Family" files). For the storage of MPEG-4 media specific information in 3GP files, the 3GP specification refers to MP4 and the AVC file format, which are also based on the ISO base media file format. The MP4 and the AVC file format specifications described usage of MPEG-4 content in the ISO base media file format. A 3GP file is always

big-endian In computing, endianness, also known as byte sex, is the order or sequence of bytes of a word of digital data in computer memory. Endianness is primarily expressed as big-endian (BE) or little-endian (LE). A big-endian system stores the most sig ...

, storing and transferring the most significant bytes first.

3G2

The 3G2 file format can store the same video streams and most of the audio streams used in the 2007 3GP file format. In addition, 3G2 stores audio streams as

EVRC Enhanced Variable Rate CODEC (EVRC) is a speech codec used in CDMA networks. It was developed in 1995 to replace the QCELP vocoder which used more bandwidth on the carrier's network, thus EVRC's primary goal was to offer the mobile carriers more cap ...

, EVRC-B, EVRC-WB, 13K (

QCELP Qualcomm code-excited linear prediction (QCELP), also known as Qualcomm PureVoice, is a speech codec developed in 1994 by Qualcomm to increase the speech quality of the IS-96A codec earlier used in CDMA networks. It was later replaced with EVRC ...

), SMV or

VMR-WB Variable-Rate Multimode Wideband (VMR-WB) is a source-controlled variable-rate multimode codec designed for robust encoding/decoding of wideband/narrowband speech. The operation of VMR-WB is controlled by speech signal characteristics (i.e., source ...

, which was specified by 3GPP2 for use in ISO base media file format. The 3G2 specification also defined some enhancements to 3GPP

Timed Text Timed text is the presentation of text media in synchrony with other media, such as audio and video. Applications Typical applications of timed text are the real-time subtitling of foreign-language movies on the Web, captioning for people lack ...

. 3G2 file format does not store Enhanced aacPlus (HE-AAC v2) and AMR-WB+ audio streams. For the storage of MPEG-4 media (AAC audio, MPEG-4 Part 2 video, MPEG-4 Part 10 – H.264/AVC) in 3G2 files, the 3G2 specification refers to the MP4 file format and the AVC file format specification, which described usage of this content in the ISO base media file format. For the storage of H.263 and AMR content 3G2 specification refers to the 3GP file format specification.

Device support

*Most 3G capable mobile phones support the playback and recording of video in 3GP format (memory, maximum filesize for playback and recording, and resolution limits exist and vary). *Some newer/higher-end phones without 3G capabilities may also playback and record in this format (again, with said limitations). *Audio

imported An import is the receiving country in an export from the sending country. Importation and exportation are the defining financial transactions of international trade. In international trade, the importation and exportation of goods are limited ...

from CD onto a

PlayStation 3 The PlayStation 3 (PS3) is a home video game console developed by Sony Computer Entertainment. The successor to the PlayStation 2, it is part of the PlayStation brand of consoles. It was first released on November 11, 2006, in Japan, November ...

when it is set to encode to the MPEG-4 AAC format copies onto USB devices in the 3GP format. *The Nintendo 3DS used 3GP technology to play

YouTube YouTube is a global online video sharing and social media platform headquartered in San Bruno, California. It was launched on February 14, 2005, by Steve Chen, Chad Hurley, and Jawed Karim. It is owned by Google, and is the second mo ...

videos. *Apple

iDevice Apple Inc. has developed four Unix-like operating systems, namely iOS, iPadOS, tvOS, and watchOS. Devices using these systems include the iPhone, iPod Touch, and iPad, which are mobile devices; the Apple TV, which is a digital media player; an ...

s used to support files for playback only as passthrough files, hence no editing ability, but since

iOS 9 iOS 9 is the ninth major release of the iOS mobile operating system developed by Apple Inc., being the successor to iOS 8. It was announced at the company's Worldwide Developers Conference on June 8, 2015, and was released on September 16, ...

this has been deprecated meaning files of this format have to be manually converted to

H.264 Advanced Video Coding (AVC), also referred to as H.264 or MPEG-4 Part 10, is a video compression standard based on block-oriented, motion-compensated coding. It is by far the most commonly used format for the recording, compression, and distr ...

Software support

When transferred to a computer, 3GP movies can be viewed on Microsoft Windows,

Apple An apple is an edible fruit produced by an apple tree (''Malus domestica''). Apple trees are cultivated worldwide and are the most widely grown species in the genus ''Malus''. The tree originated in Central Asia, where its wild ancestor, ' ...

macOS macOS (; previously OS X and originally Mac OS X) is a Unix operating system developed and marketed by Apple Inc. since 2001. It is the primary operating system for Apple's Mac computers. Within the market of desktop and lapt ...

, and the various

Linux Linux ( or ) is a family of open-source Unix-like operating systems based on the Linux kernel, an operating system kernel first released on September 17, 1991, by Linus Torvalds. Linux is typically packaged as a Linux distribution, w ...

-based operating systems; on the former two with

Windows Media Player Windows Media Player (WMP) is the first media player (application software), media player and media library application that was developed by Microsoft for playing sound reproduction, audio, video and viewing images on personal computers runnin ...

and Apple QuickTime respectively (their built-in media players), and on all three with

VLC media player VLC media player (previously the VideoLAN Client and commonly known as simply VLC) is a free and open-source, portable, cross-platform media player software and streaming media server developed by the VideoLAN project. VLC is available for desk ...

. Programs such as

Media Player Classic Media Player Classic (MPC), Media Player Classic - Home Cinema (MPC-HC), and Media Player Classic - Black Edition (MPC-BE) are a family of free and open-source, compact, lightweight, and customizable media players for 32-bit and 64-bit Microsoft ...

K-Multimedia Player K-Multimedia Player (commonly known as The KMPlayer, KMPlayer or KMP) is an Adware-supported media player for Windows and iOS that can play most current audio and video formats, including VCD, HDML, DVD, AVI, MKV, Ogg, OGM, 3GP, MPEG-1/2/4 ...

Totem A totem (from oj, ᑑᑌᒼ, italics=no or '' doodem'') is a spirit being, sacred object, or symbol that serves as an emblem of a group of people, such as a family, clan, lineage, or tribe, such as in the Anishinaabe clan system. While ''the ...

RealPlayer RealPlayer, formerly RealAudio Player, RealOne Player and RealPlayer G2, is a cross-platform media player app, developed by RealNetworks. The media player is compatible with numerous container file formats of the multimedia realm, including MP3 ...

MPlayer MPlayer is a free and open-source media player software application. It is available for Linux, OS X and Microsoft Windows. Versions for OS/2, Syllable, AmigaOS, MorphOS and AROS Research Operating System are also available. A port for DOS using ...

, and

GOM Player GOM Player is a media player for Windows, developed by GOM & Company. With more than 100 million downloads, it is also known as the most used player in South Korea. Its main features include the ability to play some broken media files and find ...

can also be used. 3GP and 3G2 files can be encoded and decoded with open source software

FFmpeg FFmpeg is a free and open-source software project consisting of a suite of libraries and programs for handling video, audio, and other multimedia files and streams. At its core is the command-line ffmpeg tool itself, designed for processing of vid ...

References

External links

3GPP codecs specifications; 3G and beyond / GSM, 26 series

* ttp://www.3gpp2.org/Public_html/Specs/index.cfm 3GPP2 specifications
3GPP2 File Formats for Multimedia Services; 3GPP2 C.S0050-B Version 1.0 - specification
* , MIME Type Registrations for 3rd Generation Partnership Project (3GPP) Multimedia files * , MIME Type Registrations for 3GPP2 Multimedia Files * , The Codecs Parameter for "Bucket" Media Types
3GP & 3G2 File Formats
{{DEFAULTSORT:3gp Computer file formats Digital container formats