LG VX8100 3gp Movie How-To
One of the things I finally got around to doing for the end of hunting this year was to figure out how to convert videos into 3gp format to watch on my LG-VX8100 phone. I used the venerable ffmpeg program to do so. Due to licensing restrictions on the 3gp (AMR) codecs, the version of ffmpeg shipped with Ubuntu is not capable of doing the conversion without being recompiled. While there are a handfull of guides on the web for compiling ffmpeg with 3gp support from source, I didn’t find one that detailed how to make a Debian .deb package it & I hit a few bumps along the way, so here’s the steps I took to get it to work.
- Get the source & build the prerequisites for ffmpeg:
$ apt-get source ffmpeg
$ sudo apt-get build-dep ffmpeg
- To build in support for the Apple AAC/AAD codecs:
$ sudo apt-get install libfaad2-0 libfaad2-dev libfaac0 libfaac-dev
- Download the following 3gp codec files from the 3gp site:
- 26073-510.zip
- 26104-510.zip
- 26204-510.zip
- Edit libavcodec/amr/makefile so the CFLAGS line reads:
CFLAGS = -Wall -I. $(CFLAGS_$(MODE)) -D$(VAD) -DMMS_IO
- Configure the debian/rules file for ffmpeg with the following:
–enable-gpl –enable-pp –enable-pthreads –enable-vorbis –enable-libogg–enable-a52 –enable-dts –enable-libgsm –enable-amr_nb –enable-amr_wb –enable-mp3lame –enable-faad –enable-faac
- Build the package (as a non-priveledged user):
$ fakeroot dpkg-buildpackage
- Once built, install the new .deb:
$ sudo apt-get install <ffmpeg…deb>
- Now you can convert any input file (of a supported code) to a file in 3gp format:
$ ffmpeg -i <input_file> -acodec amr_nb -ar 8000 -ac 1 -ab 32 -vcodec h263 -s qcif -r 10 <output_file.3gp>
Two notes:
- Before being able to convert an iTunes formatted file, I had to first rename it from <filename>.m4v to <filename>.mp4.
- The process didn’t seem to work when using a DVD vob file as the input file. I had no problems if I converted it to an avi first.
I didn’t get a chance to set this up until the end of the hunting season, but I actually had six doe and a six point buck walk out on me at once this past fall while I was watching movies in my tree stand!
Credit for adjusting debian/rules to build the .deb file goes to my friend Greg – thanks!