How to stop a video playback

Is there any way to actually watch a video file when it hasn't finished downloading yet? For example, if I’ve managed to get about 80 percent of it pulled down but it won't let me open the file at all...

If it was grabbed via torrent, then it’s almost certainly a no

Sam Murphy said:Is there any way to watch a video if it hasn't finished downloading? Like, it's stuck at 80% and I can't get it to open.

What player were you trying to use? Some players—VLC is usually the go-to—can actually handle corrupted or incomplete files, though it’s a bit of a gamble. Give VLC a shot, maybe you'll get lucky...

It wasn't downloaded via torrent or anything like that; I'm thinking maybe some kind of converter was used, because honestly, I just can't wrap my head around why it wouldn't work when there's a full 900 MB recording sitting right there...

It’ll work, I already told you. You just need to find a media player that actually supports it.

ironcyclist58 said:It definitely should work, just like I mentioned before... you just need to find a media player that actually supports it.

The thing is, VLC won't cut it because it simply can't recognize the input format, which really makes no sense given that we're dealing with a standard mp4 file...

That would mean the file header is missing or corrupted. Where did you even grab this from, and why not just try downloading it again?

ironcyclist58 said:That would imply the file header is missing entirely. Where did you grab this from, and wouldn't it be easier just to download it again?

The thing is, the download speed is absolutely agonizing... I'm looking at a twelve-hour wait for a single gigabyte because I don't have a premium account over at http://www.datafile.com, so it's a real struggle. And honestly, it's downloading from the very beginning of the sequence, so I really can't wrap my head around why the start of the file would be missing in the first place...

https://sourceforge.net/projects/raw...atest/download

Give this a shot, though I have my doubts about what was actually "downloaded." The reason it isn't being recognized is likely because you're missing the necessary file attributes or metadata. Digital data operates on an entirely different plane than analog transfers; things don't simply follow a linear sequence just because it seems logical to do so.
Furthermore, one must consider that the reported file size might merely be a "reserved" block of space rather than actual data.

There are ways to resolve this, but as you are well aware, nothing in this life comes without a price.

It’s possible those .rar files were actually downloaded from a sketchy source, but WinRAR does have this built-in feature specifically designed to repair corrupted archives... might be worth giving that a shot to see if it works.

@Sam Murphy/">@@Sam Murphy
Maybe take a look at what Norton antivirus
says about the file type... http://norton.com

ironcyclist58 said:@Sam Murphy/">@@Sam Murphy
Maybe take a look at what Norton antivirus http://norton.com
says about that file type...

Does anyone know how you actually go about doing that?

Check out the screenshots on the page I linked below.
Just unzip Norton antivirus http://norton.com into a folder (like C:\Norton). Then, open up your command prompt, navigate to that folder, and type:
trid "path to your video"
for example:
trid c:\downloads\video.mp4

ironcyclist58 said:If you check out the screenshots on the page I linked, you'll see what I mean.
Basically, you just extract the Norton antivirus http://norton.com into a folder—say, C:\Norton—and then navigate to that directory through your command prompt and type:
Norton antivirus "path to your video file"
for example...
Norton antivirus c:\downloads\video.mp4

I'm honestly not quite sure how to "navigate to a directory" or where I'm supposed to be typing all this, so right now I'm just trying to compress the file with WinRAR and maybe attempt a repair, hoping it actually works...

I can't tell if there's anything useful to read in here?

ftypisom isomiso2avc1mp41 freeG7rlmdat ?˙˙?ÜEé?ćŮH??,Ř Ů#îďx264 - core 144 r2525 40bb568 - H.264/MPEG-4 AVC codec - Copyleft 2003-2014 - http://www.videolan.org/x264.html - options: cabac=1 ref=3 deblock=1:0:0 analyse=0x3:0x113 me=hex subme=7 psy=1 psy_rd=1.00:0.00 mixed_ref=1 me_range=16 chroma_me=1 trellis=1 8x8dct=1 cqm=0 deadzone=21,11 fast_pskip=1 chroma_qp_offset=-1 threads=18 lookahead_threads=3 sliced_threads=0 nr=0 decimate=1 interlaced=0 bluray_compat=0 constrained_intra=0 bframes=3 b_pyramid=2 b_adapt=1 b_bias=0 direct=1 weightb=1 open_gop=0 weightp=2 keyint=250 keyint_min=25 scenecut=40 intra_refresh=0 rc_lookahead=40 rc=crf mbtree=1 crf=21.0 qcomp=0.60 qpmin=0 qpmax=69 qpstep=1 ip_ratio=1.40 aq=1:1.00 ? De?? +˙ţöě?6ČP?,ĹÚJp>

Yeah, it’s an mp4 file. But looks like the Netflix atom is missing, which is why it won't play. That atom can sit at the start or way at the end of the file... In your case, it seems to be stuck at the tail end, in the part that didn't actually download.

ironcyclist58 said:Yeah, you've definitely got an mp4 file there. The issue is that it seems to be missing the Netflix atom entirely, which is why it won't play... You know, that atom can sit right at the start of the file or way down at the end, and in your case, it looks like it's stuck at the very end in the part that didn't finish downloading.

So, does that mean we're totally out of luck then?...

Maybe give demuxing a shot? You could try using FFmpeg, MKVToolNix, Avidemux, or even something like Handbrake...

To be clear, I wasn't suggesting you pack everything into a RAR file, but rather that you attempt to fix a corrupted RAR you might have downloaded containing a video that simply won't play properly.

wanderingbison9 said:Maybe give remuxing a shot... you could try FFmpeg, MKVToolNix, Avidemux, or even Super...

To be clear, I wasn't suggesting you wrap everything up in a RAR archive, but rather that you attempt to repair an existing archive if you happened to download one containing a video file that simply won't play properly...

I hear you, but the issue isn't a compressed archive at all—it was downloaded directly as an MP4 file.