what to do with .3g2 video files?

[treolover]

Hi there, I've been trying and searching for a way to play those .3g2 video files that the Treo 650 takes. I use both a Mac and PC and can't get either one of them to recognize those files. It's not so much for me, but I have some awesome video of 2 friends jumping off a 50 ft. waterfall that I've promised to send to them, but what good is sending the video if they can't play them. Am I missing something here? Preferably would like to convert them to .mpg or .avi or something more universal than .3g2. Anybody else have this problem or a solution? thanks for any help

[kevinmichaels]

Hello Treolover,

This is Kevin from Palm. Apple's QuickTime should play those files.
As far as converting is concerned, perhaps someone else here can recommend software.

[chris]

Here's a page that offers some insight and freeware to converting that file to an .avi file.

I'd bet the Pro version of QuickTime would read and covert it.

-Chris

[treolover]

Hi Kevin, thanks for the reply. I tried it on Quicktime version 6.4 (the one that came with my mac)...no go, doesn't even recognize the file type. I don't own the professional ver. of QT, but i really hope I don't have to invest in it to play these types of videos. What good would that be? How can i email this to folks to enjoy? Does Palm expect everyone to own QT Pro to play these? I'm pretty bummed so far with the success I've had concerning this problem. So far, I've spent well over 10 hours of web time searching for a solution to this problem...there has got to be a way. I am the Treolover...but love is a moving target, as we all know :sad:

thanks, ed

[treolover]

Hi Chris, thanks for your reply. Unless I'm missing something (being new to this forum), I don't think you sent the url of that page you were referring to on how to convert the files.
thanks, ed

[kevinmichaels]

Hi ed,

Hmmm. I'm running on Win XP with the basic, free QuickTime ver 7.0.3.
I open the folder where the Treo videos are stored, file extensions show as .3g2.
Whether I tell QuickTime to open the file or click on the file in its folder, both open and play it. I'm not a Mac guy, but you'd think they would play on an Apple machine. I'm wondering about the difference in QuickTime versions, perhaps downloading its latest version might do the trick. Let us know.

Kevin

[treolover]

Hi Kevin, well, I updated to Quicktime ver 7.0.3 for the Mac, still no go. I get a note that says it is not a file that QT understands. Are you using QT player or QT Pro?
Even went and updated to the latest Windows Media Player for Mac...still no.
How can this be? Is this the first time anyone has brought this issue up? I find it hard to believe that I'm the only one with this problem, unless I have a computer problem, which i don't think I have.
I'd like to say forget it, but I love my Treo and want to be able to use all it's features, and the ability to take a quick video and email it to friends is one i like. Yikes!
thanks for all your help, ed

[treolover]

well, alrighty, another 2 hours of searching and here is what I've found:
-Quicktime for Mac opens .3gp but not .3g2 files...hmmmm.
-I found quite a few converters but they are all for Windows (.exe type).

This is good but I've just decided to convert completely to the Mac, so while i can convert these files today (I assume, I haven't tried them yet), it doesn't help in a month or so when I've gotten rid of my PC.

Does anyone have a Mac to try this out?
thanks, ed

[Liquifier]

As for the issue of viewing .3g2 files, VLC Player should work and its free.

For conversion, I've found this freeware for Mac

Front-End Digital Media Workshop but can only convert to MP4 (Quicktime can view that).

I've converted a 3GP(I don't have any 3GP2 files) file to MP4 successfully using this software.

[treolover]

Thanks for all the help, folks.
You all won't believe this, I didn't believe this, but the file I was using as my "test" file was corrupted, thus nothing could play it! I finally thought to try some other .3g2 files, and sure enough Quicktime 7.0.3 opens them...whodda thunk?
I'd still like to convert them to mpegs or something more accessible, so thanks again for the conversion tips,
ed