Download and view the first few minutes of a video clip without having to wait to download the whole video?

Question

In other words, Alot of times when somebody wants to download a video clip , they waste alot of time saving the video only after viewing it they realize they didnt really want that video or it is not the video they thought they were downloading.

I want some software that will enable me to just download like a small portion of a video clip without having to wait to download the whole clip. Right now I don't have a choice, if I want to see any portion of a video clip, I have to wait to download the whole video clip before I can even see it. I want to preview or just save the first 10 seconds (for example) of a larger video clip without having to download the whole clip?

I should probably mention that the type of video clips im talking about would be like "mpeg or avi" video clips that are offered for download off a website or posted on a webpage.

Answer 1

The problem is at the other end. If a source wants the video or audio to be viewable, then they set up a link that keeps track of what has been sent and do streaming. But streaming video or audio takes a lot more resources because everyone who is doing streaming has to be kept track of for whatever time it takes to view, while downloading takes much less time and the material is jammed out without a pause.
Since there are software downloaders that will start up again after a connection is broken, presumably they could be set up to break the connection after the time you specify and you could look at the result and ask for more.