curl get remote file and force download at same time

Try this, it will use curl to get the total size of the file then download partial chunks of the file proxying it to the user so as there is no wait for curl to download it first, I tested this with an avi,mp4,mp3 and an exe, hope it helps:

<?php
$file = 'http://example.com/somefile.mp3';
download($file,2000);

/*
Set Headers
Get total size of file
Then loop through the total size incrementing a chunck size
*/
function download($file,$chunks){
    set_time_limit(0);
    header('Content-Description: File Transfer');
    header('Content-Type: application/octet-stream');
    header('Content-disposition: attachment; filename='.basename($file));
    header('Cache-Control: must-revalidate, post-check=0, pre-check=0');
    header('Expires: 0');
    header('Pragma: public');
    $size = get_size($file);
    header('Content-Length: '.$size);

    $i = 0;
    while($i<=$size){
        //Output the chunk
        get_chunk($file,(($i==0)?$i:$i+1),((($i+$chunks)>$size)?$size:$i+$chunks));
        $i = ($i+$chunks);
    }

}

//Callback function for CURLOPT_WRITEFUNCTION, This is what prints the chunk
function chunk($ch, $str) {
    print($str);
    return strlen($str);
}

//Function to get a range of bytes from the remote file
function get_chunk($file,$start,$end){
    $ch = curl_init();
    curl_setopt($ch, CURLOPT_URL, $file);
    curl_setopt($ch, CURLOPT_RANGE, $start.'-'.$end);
    curl_setopt($ch, CURLOPT_BINARYTRANSFER, 1);
    curl_setopt($ch, CURLOPT_WRITEFUNCTION, 'chunk');
    $result = curl_exec($ch);
    curl_close($ch);
}

//Get total size of file
function get_size($url){
    $ch = curl_init();
    curl_setopt($ch, CURLOPT_URL, $url);
    curl_setopt($ch, CURLOPT_FOLLOWLOCATION, true);
    curl_setopt($ch, CURLOPT_RETURNTRANSFER, true);
    curl_setopt($ch, CURLOPT_HEADER, true);
    curl_setopt($ch, CURLOPT_NOBODY, true);
    curl_exec($ch);
    $size = curl_getinfo($ch, CURLINFO_CONTENT_LENGTH_DOWNLOAD);
    return intval($size);
}
?>

Try using curl like this:

$ch = curl_init($url);
curl_setopt($ch, CURLOPT_HEADER, 1);
curl_setopt($ch, CURLOPT_HTTPGET, 1);
curl_setopt($ch, CURLOPT_TIMEOUT, 60);
curl_setopt($ch, CURLOPT_RETURNTRANSFER, 1);
curl_setopt($ch, CURLOPT_SSL_VERIFYPEER, 0);
curl_setopt($ch, CURLOPT_SSL_VERIFYHOST, 0);
$result = curl_exec($ch);

$msg = new HttpMessage($result);
return $msg->getBody();

The return value then is the content of the requested file, which you can then output. So no need for a callback. HTTPMessage docs.