[theMule]

it would be awesome if xbmc could start playing an incomplete avi/rarset (or extract an incomplete avi from an incomplete compressed rar set) and be able to scan the file for changes so it could continue playing as more of the file or rarset was downloaded. this would be extremely useful for "streaming" from usenet. (if the post had good completion, you could start playing a divx post as soon as the first rar was finished downloading, and as long as the downloaded finished and par2 repair ran before xbmc hit an incomplete file, you would have "streaming" video from usenet.)

once this is possible, i intend to look into writing a python script to grab nzbs from http://www.newzbin.com. they could be put into a folder monitored by a windows or linux usenet client on a pc, and the script could start playing from the rar as soon as the first file appeared in the shared folder.

[Loto_Bak]

many file formats need information from the end of the file (for example avi files) to be played back. mplayer does not support playback of incomplete files that require information not available in the header.

better solution... get a bigger and faster pipe

[theMule]

yah, i know, it's not perfect, but xbmc already supports playing incomplete avis, although without fast forward or rewind.