The VideoLAN Forums

I heard from a friend VLC lets you watch videos as you are downloading them, i.e. I could be at 57% of a file and watch it up to that point. Is this possible? And if so, how do I do it?

Hi Hortus,

yes, that is often possible. How ? Simply open the file using VLC.
If that doesn't work out of the box, then it is very likely that it wont work in any other way. At the moment two reasons for it not to work come into my mind. The first one is that it might be a file format which is not streamable, i.e. the format does not support this type of action (but these days thats rare). The second is that you might be using a non-linear download, such as a torrent. When most people think of a download, they assume that a file is being created and then gradually growing towards its final size. This applies to "normal" downloads. But for example torrents are not being downloaded from the beginning towards the end. It is quite possible that a torrent file (or a similar p2p protocol) begins being downloaded at the end. In this case there is of course no way for you to see the beginning of the partial file, because the beginning has not yet been downloaded.

However, it is a way to view for quality (preview) a downloading torrent file; so that you have the option of discontinuing the download if not satisfied with the picture quality.