Cool Tips & Tricks »

Ever wanted to check out what you were downloading before you had completed downloading it?

It’s very easy to do (at least with AVIs, MPGs, MP3s,…)

1. Download and install uTorrent.

Select Options, Preferences, General and tick “Append .!ut to incomplete files”.

Select Options, Advanced and set bt.prio_first_last_piece to true.

2. Download and install VLC. It’s a media player which can play incomplete files.

3. Right-click on your desktop and select File, New, Text Document. Name the file temp.!ut

Right-click on the file and select Open With, Choose Program…

Select VLC media player and tick “Always use the selected program to open this kind of file”. Click OK.

VLC will start, with an error. Close it down, and delete the file. [We just did this to set the file association.]

Now, whenever you are downloading a torrent with uTorrent, you can double click on any file on the Files tab and it will begin playing in VLC [if it is incomplete, otherwise it will open in whatever application is appropropriate.] It’s safe to do this even while you are downloading.

Obviously, VLC can only play the pieces you have already downloaded but, depending on the piece size (and a degree of luck), you may be able to see/hear meaningful snatches with as little as 5% complete.