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Depends on media type being d/l'ed
Authored by: victory on May 04, '04 09:13:54PM

Not all 'rudely truncated' (i.e. incompletely downloaded) media files will play correctly, even if you rename them to change the filetype association. Generally, MPEG-based files (MPEG-1/2 video, MP3s, etc) will handle being 'chopped' this way and still play[1]. Unfortunately, the same can't always be said for other media types such as those encapsulated in *.avi or *.mov container formats. I have no idea of this applies to *.wmv and *.rm files.

Still, sometimes you can get around this by running a repair utility on the truncated file[2]. For example, in the Wintel world, there exists a tool called DivxFix (or something like that) that will properly re-index a partially downloaded AVI file and allow it to play. Likewise, under OS9 there was a similar utility for QT *.mov files. Of course, if all you're interested in is watching (not repairing) a partial clip, try any of the VideoLAN clients available for OSX. I've found that they will often play things the usual Apple QTPlayer+Divx codecs or MS WMPlayer won't.

...

[1] I believe this is simply because the MPEG transport format was designed for this type of disruptive event. While we tend to associate MPEG with music/video files to be played on computers, the data format(s) created by this group were also used early on as a stream mechanism for satellite downlinks to TV stations and the like.

[2] Obviously you're better off messing with a duplicate of the half-transferred (or transferring) file, if you intend to continue the original download.



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