3GP is the name for both a video standard designed for mobile phones and the name of the Container used to store video used in the standard. It was developed by a group of companies and standards organizations from Europe, North America, and Asia called 3GPP for 3rd Generation Partnership Project. The purpose of the project was developing a mobile video standard compatible with 3G (3rd Generation) GSM mobile phone systems.
The Container
The 3GP container format is based on the MP4 format defined in MPEG-4 Part 14, but modified to add less Muxing overhead to obtain smaller file sizes. Both MPEG-4 Part 2 (SP and ASP) and Part 10 (AVC / H.264) video can be stored in the 3GP container, as can AAC and MP3 audio. In addition, H.263 video and AMR-NB, AMR-WB, and AMR-WB+ audio, all of which were developed for video conferencing, may be used.
The Format
3GP is designed for effieciency to make it suitable for Streaming across mobile phone networks and storing on mobile devices with very littel storage capacity. Video rarely exceeds a Resolution of 320x240 (or 368x208 for widescreen), and is usually 176x144 or 176x120. Audio will usually be encoded as either MP3 or AAC-LC (Low Complexity). Framerates for most mobile devices are Limited to 15fps.
Related Guides
How to play 3GP files
Convert video files to 3GP using WinAvi
Convert DVD to 3GP using AVS
Hardware
3G Mobile Phones
