A method includes receiving from a user a request to play a media file on a media player operating on a client terminal, where the media file is coded with a first coding format incompatible with the media player. The media file is transcoded from the first coding format to a transcoded media file in a second coding format compatible with the media player, and streaming the transcoded media file over a communication network to the media player concurrently during transcoding by transcoding a data chunk from a plurality of data chunks related to the media file respectively to a transcoded data fragment. The transcoded data fragment is sent for stream viewing on the media player while transcoding a next data chunk from said plurality of data chunks. The transcoded data fragments are written to the transcoded media file and stored in a memory.