Start playing partially downloaded videos in VLC

I frequently download video files from a web server, and would like to start watching them before the download completes -- VLC, for one, can start playing a video while Safari downloads it. This AppleScript automates that task. Simply select the .download file in the Finder and run the script. You'll probably want to save this script as an Application Bundle:

on run
  tell application "Finder"
    copy selection to fileName0
  end tell
  set fileName to fileName0 as string
  if fileName ends with ".download" then
    set AppleScript's text item delimiters to ":"
    set listNames to text items of fileName
    set AppleScript's text item delimiters to ""
    set baseName to last item of listNames
    set videoName to (items 1 thru -10 of baseName as text)
    set fullVideoName to fileName & ":" & videoName
    tell application "VLC"
      open fullVideoName
    end tell
  end if
end run

When VLC opens certain incomplete video files, it will give a few errors. To get rid of these, go to Preferences in VLC, then the Interfaces section. Check Advanced at the bottom to show all the options, and make sure that Be Quiet is checked, and Interface Interaction is unchecked. You may also want to check Always on Top or Fullscreen Video Output in the Video section.

The result is that you can select a .download file, then run the script, and your video will begin playing without errors.

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The following comments are owned by whomever posted them. This site is not responsible for what they say.

seems overly complicated
Authored by: tomholio on Thu, Mar 6 2008 at 2:28PM PST

I just type wget (or if that is not available, simply ftp will do just fine, as well) in Terminal.app and paste the URL of the movie. I can then just double-click the resulting file while it's being downloaded. Presto! (Alternatively a open -a vlc PATH_TO_FILE in another Terminal window will achieve the same without needing to resort to the mouse)

but very nice config hints!
Authored by: tomholio on Thu, Mar 6 2008 at 2:33PM PST

I wanted to add that the 'Be quiet' and 'Interface interaction' feature mentioned in the original hint are really sweet! Thanks!

Start playing partially downloaded videos in VLC
Authored by: robogobo on Thu, Mar 6 2008 at 5:24PM PST

Not sure what this script is doing, but I've been using VLC to watch incomplete por.... uh, videos for years. I just drag them or set VLC as the default.

Why not just drag & drop the .download contents?
Authored by: auco on Fri, Mar 7 2008 at 3:47AM PST

"(...) that you can select a .download file, then run the script, and your video will begin playing without errors."

Well, you can also can right-click a .download file, select "Show Package Contents" and then drag the partially contained video file to any application of your choice (though it would probably a good idea to do this on a copy of the .download file if you don't want to mess up the dl with apps that maybe block the file I/O)

I prefer two mouseclicks rather than a (slow) script ;)

Start playing partially downloaded videos in VLC
Authored by: cdfmrl on Mon, Mar 10 2008 at 12:43PM PDT

@tomholio: Thanks, that works, but wget doesn't support client certificates, and so I have to use Safari most of the time.

@auco: I used to do exactly what you describe. This script was simply to automate this task:

1) Control-click (or right-click) the download file
2) Click "Show Package Contents"
3) Drag the video to VLC (or control-click and "Open With...")
4) Click "No" when asked to repair an AVI Index
5) Check "Do not display further errors" on the error window
6) Click "Dismiss"

I do this frequently enough that it can be frustrating. On my Intel iMac, the video plays in about 1.5 seconds using the above script, which is faster and less tedious than by hand.

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