Can frequent wireless drops (then reconnects) damage my downloads?

[mamegomo]

On my laptop, my wireless connection has a tendency to drop then reconnect every few minutes when there is a lot of interference from the neighbors. I'm just wondering if frequent drops (then reconnects, after a few seconds) can damage my downloads, specifically if they can create distortions (of the pinkish block variety) in my movie files or sound distortions in music files that I'm downloading.

Logic tells me no (just like how a zip file can't be 'distorted' while being downloaded (or can they? i'm not sure..)), but I'm honestly curious about this.. because sometimes the disconnects can really act up (ie. twice a minute).. Also, the fact that I can view uncompleted currently-downloading movie files makes me believe that chunks can get tampered with.

[jewelisheaven]

BitTorrent protocol ensures that all 100% downloads are byte-for-byte copies of the original. If you see artifacts, they were in the source.

Your logic is correct.

It however does not understand the layout of (AVI) files. The index and data portions are stored at the ends of the file therefore with any capable stream reader (VLC, mplayer, etc) you can "preview" the file before the whole thing finishes downloading.

[mamegomo]

Cool. Thank you very much for your answer.