How To Preview An .Avi From A Single .Rar
Updated: 06/02/2003 02:19 PM

It's a misconception that an entire archive must be download before an .avi file can be viewed.  Using the following procedure, one can preview a portion of an .avi file after downloading as little as a  single .rar

first get DivFix1.05 here:
http://www.divx-digest.com/software/divfix.html

Now...

1. download the .rar file of archive you'd like to preview   --  this is the minimum amount of files you need to carry out the procedure  --  you can download as many as you want, and the more volumes you download of the archive, the longer your preview clip will be  --   a 14MB .rar file will result in about a minute and a half's worth of video.

2. start to unpack the incomplete archive  --  of course, winrar will give an error about requiring missing volumes to complete the task, this is ok and expected  --  LEAVE WINRAR IN THIS MODE, DO NOT CLICK "OK", "CANCEL" OR ANYTHING ELSE.

3. when the archive commenced unpacking it would have started to write the .avi file (which is now corrupt due to lack of the complete archive) --  navigate your hard-drvie to this file and COPY it  --  Don't worry if it shows up as having a size of 0k.

4. now PASTE this copied file into a separate folder.

5. start DivFix and open (or browse to) the copy file you just made  --  click "Rebuild Index" in DivFix  --  you should see the progress bar and DivFix will let you know when it's finished.

6. you can now play the new copied file which has had its index "rebuilt" just as you would any other .avi  --  you can't do much with the .avi  after this procedure (such as continuing to unpack additional volumes of the archive onto it for instance),  but at least you'll be able to judge whether a download is worth the effort or not.

7. remember to close WinRar or cancel it's un-rar'ing, no sense in leaving something hanging in the background.

Many thanks to DJRyan for teaching this old dog a completely new trick ;)

db

NOTE: DivFix can also let you preview potential downloads which have been uploaded as single .avi files as well  -  look at steps 3 onwards from the above  --  you really only need to do the copy and paste if you intend to "resume" the download  --  just remember that "rebuilding" the index of a partially downloaded file means that you WON'T be able to continue its download if the server the film is on is resumable, this is why you use a copy.


Url to this pages:
http://nade.dk/web/nade/site.nsf/FramesetHP?readform&wmain=files/previewsinglerar.html