Have you ever downloaded a video off the Internet – let’s say a television show or a movie – only to find out that instead of the standard .avi format, you were faced with a bunch of files with strange extensions like .r01 and .r02? Those are segmented RAR files, and can be easily recombined into the original file for viewing.
But what if all you really want to do is watch the video? You don’t want to keep it on your hard drive. All you want to do is watch what you downloaded and get rid of it?
Well, if you’re a Mac user, all you need is VLC, a popular media player that supports everything from Windows Media to QuickTime, and a recently-updated utility (now released as a Universal Binary!), called VLC RAR-Loader.
VLC can be downloaded form the project’s home page, while VLC RAR-Loader needs to be downloaded separately. VLC RAR-Loader isn’t a part of the VLC project, but in my view would make a good addition to the standard feature set, and even if it’s not added officially, is something that every downloader should have in his/her toolbox.
What does VLC RAR-Loader do?
Simply put, VLC RAR-Loader makes it possible to watch a segmented movie, in VLC, without having to go through the time and effort (not to mention hard drive space), of combining the separate parts into the original file.
To use VLC RAR-Loader, simply drag one of the segments onto the VLC RAR-Loader icon (or drag it into the open VLC RAR-Loader window, or use the standard file picker interface), and VLC RAR-Loader will quickly scan it to see that it can be viewed. If it can, the name of the file is displayed, and simply clicking the Play button will launch VLC.
If you prefer more instant gratification, you can set VLC RAR-Loader so that it automatically launches VLC when a file it recognizes is dragged into its window. You can also set VLC to launch its videos in fullscreen mode.
I’ve seen it mentioned that VLC already has this feature, and that’s true to a point. VLC can play RAR files directly, but only if the original item was RAR’ed using RAR as a wrapper. This would be similar to using ZIP compression level 0 on a file. All you’re doing is wrapping it in the ZIP (or in this case RAR), file format, for easier distribution over the Internet. VLC, while able to play files compressed using RAR compression level zero, is unable to play any other type of RAR files.
With VLC RAR-Loader, on the other hand, you can.
As I said, I think VLC RAR-Loader is a great program. It adds a feature to an already popular multimedia player, and the feature, far from being arcane or something few would use, is – at least in my mind – well worth the effort of finding, downloading and installing VLC RAR-Loader.
