Only loading first 5 seconds of a MP3 File

Question

I have a MP3 file on my server that is 30 seconds long. I only want to play the first 5 seconds as a "preview".

Currently I am loading the full MP3 and then playing the file through AVAudioPlayer for the first 5 seconds. The issue I have with this is if the user is not on a WiFi network, this eventually can become expensive in terms of the user's data plan. I thought of finding a way to cut off downloading of the file after x amount (which I would have to calculate) of data is sent but not sure if this would be the right solution.

Any suggestions are appreciated.

Answer 1

If you want to stream audio, try AVPlayer.

You can use NStimer:

[NSTimer scheduledTimerWithTimeInterval:numberOfSeconds
    target:self
    selector:@selector(stopAudio)
    userInfo:nil
    repeats:NO];

When you start streaming just fire timer and in stopAudio method stop streaming audio after numberOfSeconds seconds.

Answer 2

According to this post, AVA is not the best for streaming audio :

Streaming with an AVAudioplayer

Hope it helps