In an IPTV or other network, a server terminal is interconnected with a number of client/peer terminals. For peer-to-peer file downloads, a data file having multimedia content (e.g., a television show) is split into a number of portions for distribution among the peer terminals. The size of each file portion increases according to the chronological order of the multimedia content, such that the first data file portion (containing the beginning of the content) is the smallest, and the last portion (containing the end of the content) is the largest. Having been provided with their network locations, a terminal obtains the file portions in either a sequential mode, where the file portions are obtained in correspondence to the sequential or chronological order of the multimedia content, or a random mode, where the file portions are obtained irrespective of the chronological order of the multimedia content.