Transcribe a long 3G2 file from a phone that predates the smartphone.
A 3G2 file that runs for hours is still small, around 115 MB an hour at a 256 kbps bitrate, so even 10 hours lands near 1.2 GB, well under the 5 GB line. Upload it whole, and a 4-hour 3G2 is ready in about 8 minutes with the first 20 minutes free and the $6 pack of 500 minutes for the rest.
3G2, in numbers
A container built for small screens holds hours of speech in very few megabytes.
What a 3G2 is
3G2 is the 3GPP2 container that CDMA networks and their handsets used for camera clips and picture messages. Frame sizes were small and bitrates low, and the sound track was usually a narrowband speech codec, so the format trades picture detail for size. Long 3G2 files turn up as a phone left recording a meeting, clips joined into one, or an archive kept in its original form.
Megabytes per hour, shown
File size is bitrate times time. A 3G2 averaging 256 kbps for picture and sound together is 256,000 bits ÷ 8 × 3,600 seconds, about 115 MB an hour; at 128 kbps it is closer to 58 MB. Check the bitrate in the file's properties and multiply by the hours you have.
Which line you meet first
At these sizes the 10-hour line always arrives long before the 5 GB one, and a 3G2 almost never reaches the 2 GB mark that waits for a pack. A recording longer than 10 hours goes up as two files, each with its own timeline.
Getting it in
Copy the file off the phone or the old memory card and drop it on the upload page. If the upload refuses the file, convert it to MP3 first: any free audio converter that reads 3G2 will do, and the speech comes out the same.
Why old phone video stalls elsewhere
The file is small, but the tooling around it has moved on.
✗ A format nobody tests any more
Even at 128 kbps, a 4-hour 3G2 is about 230 MB, around nine times the OpenAI Whisper API's documented 25 MB upload limit.
- Players that no longer open the file
- Upload boxes capped in megabytes
- Cutting the recording into short clips
- Timestamps that restart in every clip
- Phone-band audio treated like studio sound
- No summary across the whole recording
✓ The whole recording, one timeline
The 3G2 goes up as it is and comes back as one transcript with chapters across every hour.
- One 3G2 up to 10 hours or 5 GB
- About 2 minutes of processing per phone-video hour
- The first 20 minutes on the house
- $6 for 500 minutes covers 8 hours
- Names, sums and dates listed
- Five export formats
Sample
A club meeting filmed on a flip phone, two hours in.
This sample is illustrative and written for this page; it is not from a real recording. The timestamps show where each passage sits in a long 3G2.
Export
One transcript. Five clean formats.
Every pack exports all five — no format is held back for a higher tier.
Plain text
De-ummed paragraphs. Ready to paste.
SRT captions
Timed to the speech. Every video editor reads this.
WebVTT
HTML5 player + YouTube uploads.
Show notes
Formatted with chapters and pull-quotes.
Machine-readable
Timestamped text for your own tools.
Pricing
Honest pricing, no surprises.
A pack from $6 (500 minutes) opens the full transcript. After that, no subscription and no auto-renew — every tier is a one-time minute pack, and credits never expire. Buy once, use the minutes whenever you need them.
Casual pack
$6/500 min
8 hours of audio — $0.72 an hour. One-time — credits never expire.
- 500 minutes of audio
- All export formats
- Unlimited AI chat per transcript
- Executive summary & key quote
Best value
$12/2,000 min
33 hours of audio — $0.36 an hour. Credits never expire.
- 2,000 minutes of audio
- Priority queue
- All export formats
- Unlimited AI chat per transcript
Bulk pack
$24/5,000 min
83 hours of audio — $0.29 an hour. Credits never expire.
- 5,000 minutes of audio
- Priority queue
- API access for batch pipelines
- All export formats
FAQ
Long 3G2 files, answered.
How long does a long 3G2 take to transcribe?
Roughly 2 minutes of processing per hour of audio, so a 4-hour 3G2 is ready in about 8 minutes and a 10-hour one in about 20. Because the file is small, the upload itself is usually quick even on a slow connection.
What does a 4-hour 3G2 cost?
A 4-hour 3G2 counts as 240 minutes. The first 20 minutes are free for a new visitor, and the $6 pack (500 minutes) transcribes the rest from where the preview ended, leaving 260 minutes on the account for the next file. Unused minutes never expire.
How big is a 3G2 per hour?
It depends on the bitrate the phone used. At 256 kbps total an hour is about 115 MB; at 128 kbps about 58 MB. Ten hours at the higher rate is roughly 1.2 GB, under both the 2 GB first-upload line and the 5 GB file limit.
My recording is split across many short 3G2 clips. What then?
Upload each clip, or join them first with a free tool so the timestamps run continuously through one file. A single file over 10 hours should be split into two at a natural pause.
Will phone-quality audio transcribe well?
The speech is transcribed; narrowband phone audio carries less detail than a modern recording, so plan to check names and figures. The language is detected automatically from 99, and speakers are named in the summary, key quotes and chapters.
Which exports come back, and who sees the phone video?
Every 3G2 transcript downloads as TXT, DOCX, SRT, VTT and JSON. Your 3G2 is transcribed on our own servers and is never used for training, and you can delete the file and its transcript whenever you like.
Related
Related formats and pages
Upload the 3G2. No charge for the first 20 minutes of the tape.
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