Then some firms such as InterVu, Apple, Microsoft and others launched viewers and plug-ins which were capable of playing the file during the download. It seams that the primary idea was to give audience the opportunity to see what is being downloaded, and therefore, make them decide whether to wait, or cancel the download, depending of the content.

The problem was that the files were way to big, and bitrates needed for the real time viewing were unreachable for standard dial-up connections.

Clients were supposed to perform pseudo-streaming combined with the synchronization. Today, this technology can be successfully applied on the Intranets, but is losing the ground on the Internet.