ORF to 3GP Converter

Converting an Olympus ORF to 3GP: What This Page Does

An .orf is Olympus Raw Format — undeveloped sensor data from a Micro Four Thirds body, the file you keep because it can still be re-interpreted later. A .3gp is the 3GPP file format defined in 3GPP TS 26.244, built on the ISO base media file format and designed for the video-messaging and feature-phone era. Putting one inside the other means exactly one thing: your photograph is developed into a video frame and held on screen as a short, silent clip. This tutorial covers the two decisions that determine whether the result is usable — which codec you pick, and what the pipeline does to a 20-megapixel frame on the way in.

How to Convert ORF to 3GP

1. Upload Your ORF File: Drag and drop the .orf onto the page or click "+ Add Files". Queue several raws if you want them in one clip — "Merge strategy" is preselected on "Merge images", so a batch becomes a single 3GP; switch it to "Video per image" to get one file per photo.
2. Choose the Video Codec: The dropdown offers H.263, H.264, MPEG-4 and Xvid, with H.264 preselected. H.264 is the right answer unless you are feeding genuinely old handset hardware — see the table below for what each one does to the frame.
3. Set Image Duration, Resolution and Background Color: "Image Duration" runs from a single frame at 60 fps up to 10 seconds per image and starts at 5 seconds. "Video resolution" starts on "Keep original" and also offers Fixed Resolutions, Preset Resolutions, Width, Height and Width x Height. "Background Color" is white by default and fills any letterbox bars a fixed frame size creates.
4. Convert and Download: Click "Convert" and take the clip. There is no audio group on this route because a photograph has no sound — the output has no audio track at all. No sign-up, no watermark.

What Each Codec Does to Your Olympus Frame

Before any codec sees it, the developed photograph is normalised to a maximum long edge of 4096 pixels. A current 20-megapixel Micro Four Thirds body records 5184 x 3888, and an older 16-megapixel one 4608 x 3456; both arrive at the encoder as 4096 x 3072. From there:

The H.263 row is the one to read twice. That codec accepts only five frame sizes — 128 x 96, 176 x 144, 352 x 288, 704 x 576 and 1408 x 1152 — so the pipeline picks the largest that fits inside your frame and scales to it, overriding whatever you chose under Video resolution. Since 1408 x 1152 is an 11:9 shape and a Micro Four Thirds frame is 4:3, the picture is also very slightly stretched. That is the price of the compatibility H.263 buys; if you are not targeting a phone from that era, leave the codec on H.264.

Those five H.263 sizes are the classic ITU picture formats, and the snap always takes the largest one that fits inside your frame:

The MPEG-4 and Xvid caveat is worth knowing before you go hunting through the resolution options: those two encoders are limited to 2048 pixels per axis, and the cap is applied to width and height separately. Ask for a 3840 x 2160 fixed size with Xvid selected and you get 2048 x 2048 — a square, not a widescreen frame. Leaving "Keep original" alone avoids the problem entirely.

One more codec-specific quirk: on a still image there is no incoming bitrate for the "Quality Preset" control to scale, so on H.263, MPEG-4 and Xvid it has nothing to work with. Use "Constraint Quality" and set a maximum bitrate instead. On H.264 the preset works normally.

What the RAW Loses on the Way In

Video frames are ordinary 8-bit pictures, so the conversion has to develop your raw file first, and that step is one-way:

• White balance and exposure are baked in. The raw is demosaiced using the white balance the camera recorded, then written as 8-bit sRGB. The tonal latitude that made the .orf worth keeping — highlight recovery, a different colour temperature, a different curve — exists only in the original file. Grade in Olympus Workspace, Lightroom or your editor of choice first if the look matters.
• Bit depth is truncated at load. The sensor readout carries more than 8 bits per channel, and the developer used here writes 8. Nothing downstream can recover the difference.
• Resolution is capped at 4096 on the long edge whichever resolution option you pick, so "Keep original" does not mean "full sensor resolution".
• Metadata does not travel. EXIF, lens data and GPS coordinates live in the raw file's metadata; a 3GP video track has nowhere to put them.

If any of that reads as a dealbreaker, the honest answer is that you want a still, not a video: ORF to JPG for a picture you can share and print, or ORF to TIFF for an editing master. And if you want a video that plays on a current phone or browser rather than a 3GP-era handset, ORF to MP4 keeps the full 4096-pixel frame.

Frequently Asked Questions

Why is my ORF-to-3GP clip completely silent?

Because a photograph has no audio, and this route does not manufacture any. The audio codec group is not even shown on an image-to-video page — the output simply contains a video track and nothing else. That is different from a silent audio track: there is no stream to unmute. Add music or narration in a video editor after conversion if the clip needs sound.

How long is the clip, and how many frames does it contain?

Its length is whatever "Image Duration" says — five seconds by default, adjustable from a single frame up to ten seconds per image. Stills are encoded at one frame per second, so a five-second clip is five identical frames rather than 125 of them. That keeps the file tiny, and it is also why there is nothing to gain from a high frame rate here: nothing in the picture moves.

Can I turn a folder of Olympus raws into one slideshow?

Yes. Upload them together and leave "Merge strategy" on "Merge images" — every file becomes one segment of a single 3GP, each held for the Image Duration you set, so twelve raws at four seconds each produce a 48-second clip. Choosing "Video per image" instead gives you one separate clip per raw. There are no transitions or cross-fades; each still simply replaces the previous one.

Should I pick H.263 or H.264 for an old phone?

H.263 if the target device is genuinely from the 3GP era and refuses anything else; H.264 in every other case. H.263 is the codec those handsets were designed around, but it costs you the frame size — the picture is forced to one of five fixed dimensions, at most 1408 x 1152, with the aspect ratio not preserved. H.264 inside 3GP is also standard under the 3GPP file format specification and is decoded by anything made in the last fifteen years.

Why is the frame limited to 4096 pixels when my camera shoots 5184?

Because every image is normalised before encoding, with the long edge capped at 4096 pixels and both dimensions rounded to even numbers. A 5184 x 3888 Olympus frame therefore becomes 4096 x 3072 regardless of which resolution option you choose, including "Keep original". For a still that keeps every pixel the sensor captured, convert to ORF to TIFF or ORF to JPG instead — the cap belongs to the video path, not to image targets.

What is the Background Color option for if my photo fills the frame?

It fills whatever the photo does not. With "Keep original" or a height preset the frame matches your picture's aspect ratio and you never see it. Pick a fixed frame size — say 640 x 480 for a 4:3 handset, or an explicit Width x Height — and any mismatch between that shape and your photo's shape is padded with this colour. It is white by default; black is usually the better choice for anything being viewed on a screen in the dark.

Will the colours match what Olympus Workspace shows me?

Close, but do not assume identical. The converter develops the raw with the white balance the camera recorded and outputs 8-bit sRGB, while Olympus's own software applies its picture modes and colour rendering. Expect a neutral, faithful development rather than a match for a specific in-camera look. If the exact rendering matters, export a JPEG or TIFF from your raw editor and convert that file instead.

Is 3GP still worth using in the first place?

Rarely, and you should be honest with yourself about why you are here. 3GP exists because early 3G phones needed small video files over narrow data channels; the containers and codecs it favours are decades old. Choose it when a specific old device, MMS-era tool or test rig demands .3gp and nothing newer. For anything a modern phone, browser or television will play, ORF to MP4 is smaller at the same quality and vastly better supported.

How are my files handled, and how long do you keep them?

Your raw is uploaded over an encrypted connection, developed and encoded on our servers, and deleted automatically a few hours after conversion — no sign-up, no watermark, never shared or made public. Micro Four Thirds raws run to roughly 15-25 MB each, so a batch of them takes noticeably longer to upload than it does to convert.