I have another suggestion, that is to show the quality of a video before it is downloaded. So many times I download a movie and it is grainy like someone took a camcorder into the theater. I wish there was a way to know that before I download the whole thing.

I've read about that happening before. More-so for new releases or before the official release.

I'd suggest size is usuall the best guage of quality. But definitely not limited to that. A movie split into 2-3 cd's will be a damned sight better than one that's been shrunk down to a single cd or LESS! Anything below 500 MB I'd recommend not to bother with.

That's the problem with video encoding, if it's been down using a cheap & nasty poor quality encoder, then so surprise about the results. Some dvd-vcd apps out there are 'really' poor. Some even come out black & white, or highly pixelated or both, lol.

Video is a complex subject. The maths behind deciphering a particular video & of any of a no. of different formats would probably be difficult to implement at my guess. There's many a type of video format out there & new ones show up. Some of these are copyright also. So should LW pay Micro$oft for the rights to be able to decode WMV files or a no. of others? I'd suggest it'd be more practical to use your default player to launch & preview them. Depending on the format, if 'some' video files are incomplete, then they can't be viewed. Even your top cd/dvd burner apps are quite limited to the types of video they can preview or burn. Oh well, just a personal opinion.

Why don't you browse the video during dwnlding.