Convert 3G2 to OGA — Free Online Tool
Convert 3G2 video files to OGA audio by extracting and re-encoding the audio stream as Vorbis inside an Ogg container. This is ideal for stripping legacy CDMA mobile video down to a portable, open-format audio file compatible with modern media players and open-source software.
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FFmpeg Command
Copy this command to run the same conversion locally with FFmpeg on your desktop. Download FFmpeg
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Settings
Note: Browser-based encoding uses approximate quality targets. For precise CRF compression, copy the FFmpeg command above and run it on your desktop.
Estimated output:
Conversion Complete!
DownloadHow It Works
During this conversion, FFmpeg opens the 3G2 container and reads the audio stream — typically encoded as AAC, which was the standard for 3GPP2 mobile video. Because OGA uses the Ogg container and does not support AAC natively, the audio must be fully decoded and re-encoded as Vorbis (the default) using the libvorbis encoder. The video stream from the 3G2 file is discarded entirely, since OGA is an audio-only format. The result is a standalone Ogg Vorbis audio file (.oga) containing only the audio content from the original mobile video. Quality is controlled by the variable bitrate quality scale (-q:a), with a default of 4 out of 10 producing a good balance of file size and fidelity.
What Each Flag Does
| Flag | What it does |
|---|---|
ffmpeg
|
Invokes the FFmpeg command-line tool. In the browser version of this tool, the same FFmpeg logic runs via WebAssembly (FFmpeg.wasm) without any server upload. |
-i input.3g2
|
Specifies the input file in 3G2 format — the legacy CDMA mobile multimedia container. FFmpeg reads both the video and audio streams from this file, though only the audio will be used in the output. |
-c:a libvorbis
|
Selects the libvorbis encoder to re-encode the audio stream as Vorbis, the native and default audio codec for the OGA (Ogg Audio) container. This is necessary because the 3G2 source uses AAC, which is not compatible with the Ogg container. |
-q:a 4
|
Sets the Vorbis variable bitrate quality level to 4 on a scale of 0–10, targeting approximately 128kbps average bitrate. This is a sensible default for 3G2 source material, which was originally encoded at low mobile bitrates and is unlikely to benefit from quality settings above 6. |
output.oga
|
Defines the output filename with the .oga extension, which signals FFmpeg to use the Ogg container in audio-only mode. The video stream from the 3G2 input is automatically discarded because OGA cannot carry video data. |
Common Use Cases
- Extracting voice memos or recorded calls saved as 3G2 files on older CDMA phones (Verizon, Sprint) to archive them as a widely playable open audio format
- Pulling the audio track from a 3G2 mobile video clip to use in open-source video editing projects that require Ogg-compatible audio
- Converting a library of old 3G2 video recordings from early 2000s/2010s mobile devices into compact OGA files for audio-only archiving
- Preparing audio extracted from 3G2 clips for use in Linux-based multimedia workflows where Ogg Vorbis is the preferred open-standard audio format
- Stripping the audio from a 3G2 video interview or field recording to create a podcast-ready or transcript-ready audio file without the video overhead
- Converting mobile-captured 3G2 content to OGA for playback in browsers or players that support Ogg but not the 3G2 container
Frequently Asked Questions
Yes, some quality loss is expected because this is a lossy-to-lossy transcode. The AAC audio in the 3G2 file must be fully decoded and then re-encoded as Vorbis. The amount of quality degradation depends on the original AAC bitrate — 3G2 files from CDMA mobile devices were often encoded at very low bitrates (as low as 12–64kbps) to suit narrow mobile network bandwidth, so the source quality may already be limited. Using a higher -q:a value (e.g., 6–8) will minimize additional loss introduced by the Vorbis encoding step.
OGA is strictly an audio-only container based on the Ogg format. It has no provision for video streams, so FFmpeg automatically drops the video track when targeting an .oga output file. If you need to keep the video, consider converting to an Ogg video format (.ogv) instead, which supports Theora video alongside Vorbis audio.
Adjust the -q:a value, which controls Vorbis variable bitrate quality on a scale from 0 (lowest) to 10 (highest). The default of 4 targets roughly 128kbps average bitrate. For better fidelity, use -q:a 6 or -q:a 8. For smaller files from already low-quality 3G2 sources, -q:a 2 or -q:a 3 is usually sufficient since the source audio likely won't benefit from a higher target quality. Example: ffmpeg -i input.3g2 -c:a libvorbis -q:a 6 output.oga
Yes, OGA supports FLAC audio, and you can substitute the codec by changing the command to use -c:a flac. However, because the 3G2 source audio is already lossy AAC, encoding to FLAC will not recover any lost quality — it simply stores the decoded PCM audio losslessly, resulting in a much larger file with no perceptible quality benefit over a high-quality Vorbis encode. FLAC in OGA makes more sense when the original source is uncompressed or lossless.
It depends on what metadata exists in the 3G2 file. Most 3G2 files recorded by CDMA mobile devices carry minimal or no metadata tags. OGA (Ogg Vorbis) uses Vorbis Comment tags for metadata, which is a different system from the MP4-style metadata atoms in 3G2. FFmpeg will attempt to map compatible tags automatically, but device-specific or proprietary 3G2 metadata may not transfer. You can add or inspect tags using FFmpeg's -metadata flag or a dedicated tag editor after conversion.
Yes. On Linux or macOS, you can use a shell loop: for f in *.3g2; do ffmpeg -i "$f" -c:a libvorbis -q:a 4 "${f%.3g2}.oga"; done. On Windows Command Prompt, use: for %f in (*.3g2) do ffmpeg -i "%f" -c:a libvorbis -q:a 4 "%~nf.oga". This processes each 3G2 file in the current directory and outputs a matching .oga file. The in-browser tool on this page processes one file at a time, so the FFmpeg command is especially useful for bulk conversion of large 3G2 archives.
Technical Notes
The 3G2 format is a variant of the MP4/ISOBMFF container developed for 3GPP2 (CDMA) mobile standards, and its audio streams are almost universally AAC — specifically HE-AAC or AAC-LC at low bitrates suited to constrained CDMA network conditions. Vorbis, the default codec for OGA, uses a perceptually different psychoacoustic model than AAC, so the transcoding path is: AAC decode → raw PCM → Vorbis encode. This double-lossy path means the output quality ceiling is bounded by the original 3G2 audio quality, which is often modest (12–64kbps). OGA (Ogg Vorbis) is an entirely open, patent-free format with strong support in open-source ecosystems (VLC, Firefox, Linux audio tools) but limited native support on Apple devices and older Windows Media Player versions. The Ogg container in OGA does support chapter markers, which FFmpeg could theoretically write, but 3G2 files do not carry chapter data so none will be present in the output. There is no subtitle or multiple-audio-track support in OGA, which is not a limitation in this conversion since 3G2 does not support subtitles and the output is audio-only. File sizes will vary considerably depending on the -q:a setting and the duration of the source 3G2 file; at the default q:a 4, expect roughly 80–128kbps average output bitrate.