temp folder

[preet]

Hi.

Say i am watching a .avi movie streaming from the Internet and it requires buffering and other stuffs.When the movie has been 100% buffered is it stored in my hard drive in a temporary folder or...

[mjc]

Yes...maybe.

It depends on the movie/player combo. Flash movies may or may not be stored in the Temp folder (Flash has its own cache folders) or may/may not be 'encrypted'. Avi movies can also be stored somewhere other than the temp folder and encrypted.

[preet]

Oh, encrypted...is there a way to locate them?

[awaj]

are you trying to download the videos the videos online so you don't need to watch them while on the internet?

[preet]

Am not downloading it. one of my friend asked me how does buffering works and i explained me hom about the temp folders stuffs. Well i never couldnot show him the videos in the particular folder....so i still don't have an idea how the streaming is done.......

[mjc]

Most types of streaming use some sort of temporary storage...somewhere, but whether or not it is accessible is another question. Also, not every type of player will cache the whole thing. Some, like Quicktime, cache a few seconds worth and constantly overwrite the cache (if I remember, you can set QuickTime's cache to do something like 30 seconds worth).

Also, depending on the format and player, the stream may be encrypted. Which basically means outside of the player, the file is nothing but gibberish. Also some streams don't go to 'folders' but to oddly named files...that are erased when the stream is finished.

DRM is the reason behind all of this...control the stream and its playback.

[Sylvander]

Get/install/run [as I have] the FREE BETA SpaceMonger v2.1.2-pre3 (http://www.sixty-five.cc/download/) of this PORTABLE program [click on the Beta tab].
[It nags you to buy, but I find that a small negative compared to the positive]
And remember that a portable program puts no settings in the registry and can be run from ANYWHERE that any suitable OS can access.
The OS could be run from a CD and the program could be on a Flash Drive or USB HDD!

This program displays DYNAMICALLY the changing state of the space usage on a partition chosen to be displayed.

Hence, as the arrangement of space usage alters...
Perhaps by deleting a file [sending it to the Recycle Bin->try it with big file!], so you would see the file shrink as the recycle bin grows....
Or as a temporary file was gradually increasing in size or fluctuating in size...
You would see which file was being created and growing/fluctuating and then being eliminated [if so].

It's quite amazing to watch the display alter before your very eyes.

Once you know where the created file resides, you can easily zoom in and navigate to that region to study the storage area in greater detail.
The folder and file names are displayed and as you zoom in are displayed bigger, and therefore more easily read.

The display of my own system looks much better than THIS (http://www.sixty-five.cc/sm/img/treemap.gif); it almost fills my screen.

Here's a tiny region of a zoomed in view on my system.
.

[preet]

Nice explanation! Thanks