ways to watch a torrent while it's downloading? (kbin.social)

submitted 9 months ago* (last edited 9 months ago) by milkytoast@kbin.social to c/piracy@lemmy.dbzer0.com

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let's say I'm torrenting a movie, and the torrent is downloading faster than the movie would play, is there any software that can handle a constantly changing file? thanks

edit: basically as long as you tell your torrent client to download sequentially, VLC (and probably most other video players) can just play the file like normal. though as one user pointed out, this may affect dl speeds.

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[-] breakingcups@lemmy.world 4 points 9 months ago

Torrents are usually not downloaded in order but (for all intents and purposes) randomly. That means that, even though 10% might already be downloaded, it might just be the final 10% of the movie (or more realistically, random snippets scattered throughout the file).

There used to be some torrent clients that were able to do what you ask, request pieces in order only, but I don't know if they are still around and they could potentially affect your download speed.