Adding 3GP format videos to my library?

Only 3gp files with codec H264 and MPEG-4 will be accepted with iTunes, so your 3gp files can not be recognized with iTunes. Then you may need a video converter to convert your 3gp files to mov or mp4 that iTuns always accepts. Total Video Converter from etinysoft would be a good choice, it has both Windows and Mac version.

Hope this can help you. 🙂

This post is still active?

3GP is a outdated format. To convert 3GP to iTunes acceptable MP4 format, Handbrake works great as a freeware.

Or try reliable apps from AppStore, such as HD Video Converter, iMedia Converter, etc.

3GP, a video coding format, theoretically can be imported to and played by iTunes but practically most iTunes users find that they can't play 3GP in iTunes.

That's because 3GP equals to a container and doesn't have specific coding and decoding standard, normally people will adopt the 3GP with codecs like AMR narrow-band speech codec, AMR wideband peech codec, Extended AMR-WB codec, Enhanced aac Plus and MPEG-4 AAC codec, MPEG-4video codec, H.263 video codec, H.264 (AVC)video codec, among which only the codecs like MPEG-4 and H.264 can be recognized by iTunes.That's why not all 3GP can

be played by iTunes.

To solve can't add 3GP to iTunes, we had better convert 3GP to iTunes supported MP4 or MOV

iTunes doesn't support 3GP as an input format. You may need to convert 3GP files to MP4.

From an article on how to convert 3GP to MP4, I learn that:

3GP (3GPP file format) based on MPEG-4 Part 12, is the simplified version of MP4, especially designed for mobile phone to record and transfer videos. When 3GP format is invented, the mobile phones are less powerful as today, so that the 3GP video is usually in low resolution, low frame rate, low quality and low bitrate. Besides, 3GP file uses AVC/H.264, MPEG-4, and H.263 for video compression and AAC, AMR for audio compression. Since many players don't support AMR audio codec, you cannot hear any sound when playing 3GP files on these players.

Compared to 3GP, MP4 (MPEG-4) is the most widely used video format today with high audio and video quality, and is supported by nearly any popular player and device, like iMovie, VLC, iPhone, iPad, etc.

All in all, it's the wisest choice to convert 3GP to MP4 for playback on most popular players and devices. The following article will introduce a step by step guide on how to convert 3GP to MP4 with ease. Furthermore, 3G2 (3GPP2 file format) for 3G CDMA2000 multimedia services, is very similar to the 3GP file format, so this article also applies to 3G2 format.