Because bandwidth was expensive and home internet connections (like dial-up or early broadband DSL) were slow, videos were heavily compressed into formats like .avi , .wmv , or .rm (RealMedia). Long scenes were regularly chopped into smaller segments (e.g., Part 1, Part 2, Part 3, Part 4) so users could download them incrementally without crashing their connections. A file ending in 04.avi is a textbook artifact of this technological limitation. File Sharing, Archiving, and Digital Footprints