Download What is 3GP and 3GPP

3GP is a multimedia container format defined by the Third Generation Partnership Project (3GPP) for use on 3G mobile phones.

3GP is a simplified version of the MPEG-4 Part 14 (MP4) container format, designed to decrease storage and bandwidth requirements in order to accommodate mobile phones. It stores video streams as MPEG-4 Part 2 or H.263 or MPEG-4 Part 10 (AVC/H.264), and audio streams as AMR-NB, AMR-WB, AMR-WB+ or AAC-LC. A 3GP file is always big-endian, storing and transferring the most significant bytes first. It also contains descriptions of image sizes and bitrate. There are two different standards for this format:

3GPP (for GSM Based Phones, may have filename extension .3gp)
3GPP2 (for CDMA Based Phones, may have filename extension .3g2)

Both are based on MPEG-4 and H263 video, and AAC or AMR audio.

3GP files are viewable on a PC using QuickTime or RealPlayer.

MPEG-4 Part 14, formally, ISO/IEC 14496-14:2003, is a multimedia container format standard specified as a part of MPEG-4. It is most-commonly used to store digital audio and digital video streams, especially those defined by MPEG, but also can be used to store other data such as subtitles and still images. Like most modern container formats, MPEG-4 Part 14 allows streaming over the Internet. The official filename extension for MPEG-4 Part 14 files is .mp4, thus the container format is often refered to simply as MP4.

3GPP
The 3rd Generation Partnership Project (3GPP) is a collaboration agreement that was established in December 1998. It’s a co-operation between ETSI (Europe), ARIB/TTC (Japan), CCSA (China), ATIS (North America) and TTA (South Korea).

Some of the well well-known participants of the 3GPP project are 3, Alvatel Apple, AT&T, BenQ, BT Group, China Mobile Com, Congular Wireless, Cisco, Ericsson, France Telecom, Fraunhofer, Fujitsu, HP, HuaWei, IBM, Intel, KDDI, KPN, LG, Lucent, Microsoft, Mitsubishi, Motorola, NEC, Nippon Ericsson, Nokia, Nortel, NTT DoCoMo, 02, Oki, Panasonic, Philips, Qualcomm, Samsung, Sharp, Siemens, Sony Ericsson, Sun, Swisscom, Tata Consultancy Services, Texas Instruments, Thomson, T-Mobile, TNO, Toshiba, VIA Technologies , Vodafone and Yokogawa, to name but a few.

The scope of 3GPP is to make a globally applicable third generation (3G) mobile phone system specification within the scope of the ITU’s IMT-2000 project. 3GPP specifications are based on evolved GSM specifications, now generally known as the UMTS system.

Note that 3GPP should not be confused with 3GPP2, which specifies standards for another 3G technology based on IS-95 (CDMA), commonly known as CDMA2000.