iOS Radio App: Need to extract and… | Apple Developer Forums

iOS Radio App: Need to extract and stream audio-only from HLS streams with video content

I'm developing an iOS radio app that plays various HLS streams. The challenge is that some stations broadcast HLS streams containing both audio and video (example: https://svs.itworkscdn.net/smcwatarlive/smcwatar/chunks.m3u8), but I want to:

Extract and play only the audio track
Support AirPlay for audio-only streaming
Minimize data usage by not downloading video content

Technical Details:

iOS 17+
Swift 5.9
Using AVFoundation for playback
Current implementation uses AVPlayer with AVPlayerItem

Current Code Structure: class StreamPlayer: ObservableObject { @Published var isPlaying = false private var player: AVPlayer? private var playerItem: AVPlayerItem?

func playStream(url: URL) {
    let asset = AVURLAsset(url: url)
    playerItem = AVPlayerItem(asset: asset)
    player = AVPlayer(playerItem: playerItem)
    player?.play()
}

Stream Analysis: When analyzing the video stream using FFmpeg:

CopyInput #0, hls, from 'https://svs.itworkscdn.net/smcwatarlive/smcwatar/chunks.m3u8':
  Stream #0:0: Video: h264, yuv420p(tv, bt709), 1920x1080 [SAR 1:1 DAR 16:9], 25 fps
  Stream #0:1: Audio: aac, 44100 Hz, stereo, fltp
Attempted Solutions:

Using MobileFFmpeg:

let command = [
    "-i", streamUrl,
    "-vn",
    "-acodec", "aac",
    "-ac", "2",
    "-ar", "44100",
    "-b:a", "128k",
    "-f", "mpegts",
    "udp://127.0.0.1:12345"
].joined(separator: " ")

ffmpegProcess = MobileFFmpeg.execute(command)

Issue: While FFmpeg successfully extracts audio, playback through AVPlayer doesn't work reliably.

Tried using HLS output:

let command = [
    "-i", streamUrl,
    "-vn",
    "-acodec", "aac",
    "-ac", "2",
    "-ar", "44100",
    "-b:a", "128k",
    "-f", "hls",
    "-hls_time", "2",
    "-hls_list_size", "3",
    outputUrl.path
]

Issue: Creates temporary files but faces synchronization issues with live streams. Requirements:

Real-time audio extraction from HLS stream Maintain live streaming capabilities Full AirPlay support Minimal data usage (avoid downloading video content) Handle network interruptions gracefully

Questions:

What's the most efficient way to extract only audio from an HLS stream in real-time? Is there a way to tell AVPlayer to ignore video tracks completely? Are there better alternatives to FFmpeg for this specific use case? What's the recommended approach for handling AirPlay with modified streams?

Any guidance or alternative approaches would be greatly appreciated. Thank you!