Hi

is there a player that i can download that would allow me to watch partially downloaded video from the internet?...in other words if i am downloading a large video clip and i want to watch it to see if i like it before i download the entire clip is there a player that will allow me to watch it?

There probably is and somebody will point you to a special player or browser plugin for that. 

I just wanted to share the method for doing it without anything special if you just want to do this rarely.  If you know the folder the file is downloading to, you can typically go and copy the partially downloaded file.  You will want to make a copy of it rather than try to open the file itself, as doing so may interfere with the download.  You may also need to rename the copy to have the correct extension. 

At that point, most types of video files will play in most of the usual players.  There are just a few codecs that won't like it. 

This will work with files being downloaded from the web of FTP sites. Torrents are downloaded as tiny blocks in no particular order, so the whole file has "holes" all over until it is complete (unless you can find a torrent client with a special setting for this).

VLC can do this, just don't try to repair the file and it should be fine.