AVPlayer not playing URL from backend - ios

Question

I'm using AVPlayer to play URL's i'm fetching from my backend. Initially, I was downloading the items to my documents directory and used the urls to play the files via AVAudioPlayer. I switched over to AVPlayer so I can stream the audio instead of downloading them. I see that the URL's are being fetched successfully, but once I try to play them I get no audio. Below is an example of a URL i'm fetching:
/Users/ellie/Desktop/ellie/sound/uploads/ellie1/Track5.m4a
var player: AVPlayer!
var fetchedURL: NSURL?
func tableView(tableView: UITableView, didSelectRowAtIndexPath indexPath: NSIndexPath) {
//I left out the fetching process
self.fetchedURL = NSURL(string:parseString!)
print("fetchedURL is \(self.fetchedURL!)")
self.playCell()
}
func playCell() {
let audioSession: AVAudioSession = AVAudioSession.sharedInstance()
do {
try audioSession.setCategory(AVAudioSessionCategoryPlayback)
} catch _ {
}
do {
try audioSession.setActive(true)
} catch _ {
}
print("fetchedURL is \(self.fetchedURL!)")
player = AVPlayer(URL:self.fetchedURL!)
player.play()
}

Answer 1

The AVPlayer will play only locally and remotely hosted video files, and will also play streaming links. To stream you need to ensure that a proper streaming link is used, some examples found here: https://stackoverflow.com/questions/10104301/hls-streaming-video-url-need-for-testing.
Note, that it is not a trivial task to convert a video file into a hosted streaming link. Services such as vimeo provide the ability to upload and encode video files, however will provide you with a streaming link only under the 'pro' version.
Other options include configure AWS S3 buckets to host and encode your video files. http://docs.aws.amazon.com/AmazonCloudFront/latest/DeveloperGuide/TutorialStreamingJWPlayer.html