Playing incomplete .avi woes.

April 13, 2007 5:10 PM

I'm looking for a plugin for VLC (or, an alternate media player) that is capable of handling incomplete video files downloaded from a Bittorrent network.

Certain chunks are available, but others aren't. I want to be able to view the available data in a continuous stream, that plays everything available, irrespective of where in the timeline it is.

A plugin that does this for eMule is available [http://www.emule-project.net/home/perl/help.cgi?l=1&rm=show_topic&topic_id=138]. It takes the available video data, compiles it into a file, and then VLC plays it. Or something like that. However, I can't get this plugin to work with Bittorrent.

I'm using Windows XP.

posted by Solomon to computers & internet (7 comments total)

DivFix might be able to help you, do a rebuild with cutting out bad parts. If i was you id make sure to only work on a copy, so you don't lose what you already have.
posted by scodger at 5:21 PM on April 13, 2007

Wow. Anything like this for OS X?
posted by dobbs at 5:31 PM on April 13, 2007

What type of video file? I know, from recent experience, that QuickTime can play partially downloaded files (in this case, .dv). I would assume that it could do the same with other playable files.
posted by niles at 5:44 PM on April 13, 2007

oh. avi files. right.
posted by niles at 5:50 PM on April 13, 2007

AVIPreview.
posted by Leon at 5:58 PM on April 13, 2007

My VLC already plays .part files from the eDonkey network, though I haven't tried .bt! or other extensions. My guess is that the extension is arbitrary, but it's possible that VLC only recognizes certain extensions as "partial file" type.
posted by BlackLeotardFront at 10:21 PM on April 13, 2007

VLC will play a portion of the file, especially if the first few chunks are downloaded, but when it comes to an incomplete/missing chunk, it stops playing. Using the eMule plugin, I can view the downloaded pieces sequentially, without VLC crashing. Unfortunately,it only does this for eMule.

I'll look into the two apps suggested, thanks.
posted by Solomon at 3:45 AM on April 14, 2007