movie downloading questions

[rennie]

what is a codec? and is it attached to a downloaded avi file and if so how do i find it? Also, how can i preview a partially downloaded video file to tell if it is good or not? and lastly when choosing a movie to download i see a lot of (mtg), (smd), (tmd), (xpm) in the download description what do they mean ?

[bilbogod]

Hi, Codecs enable you to view a variety of different vidoe formats that your default player (probably Windows Media Player) will otherwise not understand. Refer to the tools section on this site to download whatever you should require.
Many films on the internet that have been compressed down to approx 650MB are in DivX format and hence you require a DivX codec to support them (Media Payer does not automatically contain this). As for the differing abbreviations theses often refer to either the original source of the file (e.g SCR = screener) or the format the file is in (Mpg + mpeg).
The faq on this site should help address all of these queries