Hello, I have a question about sequential and first / last priority in relation to streaming

How does turning these on compare to using uTorrents streaming option?

Do I need both of these to Stream a video?

Does sequential still download some rarest-first/random pieces? or only sequential pieces?

Hello, I don't know how Tixati compares to uTorrent in terms of sequential downloading, I never used this feature on uTorrent. I tried this a couple of times on Tixati. MPC-HC can playback file being downloaded only when I use both sequential and front+back first. Tixati never downloads sequentially, even Aggressive setting won't do it. Instead it seems to prioritize pieces from the front higher than pieces from the back of the file. With Aggressive setting Tixati prioritizes less pieces and downloading is closer to sequential, while the "normal" setting uses "wider" sequence of pieces as high priority.

Thanks for this information.

tixati downloads file by blocks. with force sequental downloading goes block by block. inside blocks pieses downloading looks random. but if you wait while 1-2 blocks will fully downloaded (1-10 min. depends of download speed) then playback go nice and smooth. videoplayer can be any of that support streaming playback. media player classic, daum potplayer, kmplayer, vcl works fine for example but this is not a full list.

in compare of utorrent tixaty show his best if you downnload a tv show with all episodes in one torrent file. tixati the only client i know can proper download sequentally any of the episodes in order you choose.

and no there is no need to get both if one of them works fine for you.

I there a way of introducing a setting so that all files download in sequential/first-last mode by default?  Selecting these options every time takes too long.  Perhaps a general keyboard shortcut can be introduced so that both features could be turned on simultaneously?

Regarding whether you need both: it depends on the video format. Some video formats (mp4 IIRC) require both the header AND the footer of the file to play, while others (wmv I think) have all the necessary info in the header so sequential is enough. In general, since it only downloads a couple of pieces from the end, selecting both is a simpler approach.

NO, and never. It's an option. It's bad for swarm longevity and actual filesharing. If you search you will see many threads on this both older and newer (c. 2014) with suggested changes you make to make your client better.
Pretty sure with the popup dialog you can select priority. The extra steps are required because that's not the point of bittorrent protocol. It just gets your data from A <-> B in smaller chunks without waiting for the full transfer.
And it does it well. BT, Inc. spun off Resilio to do just that -- data replication for BUSINESSES. If it didn't make exact byte copies it wouldn't sell well, and noone would buy.

To understand the progression of filesharing in the last decade prior to .torrent files, look up JIGDO, or PAR(ity files), PAR2 or PAR3 as well as the still used .MD5 .ASC and .SFV filetypes. IT all depends on how long until you find out whether or not your data is corrupt(ed).