The Heartland Christmas Channel is broadcasting exclusively with newer encoding tecnology known as AAC+. The technical name for AAC+ is "High-Efficiency Advanced Audio Coding." At this time, Windows Media Player cannot natively support AAC streaming. However, plugins are available should you desire to use Windows Media Player. A very popular player which does support AAC streaming natively is Winamp. Winamp is free, and it is one of the most popular radio player in the world. You can visit www.winamp.com to download Winamp Player for free (or just Click Here to download it now). 2 other popular players that supports AAC+ are Real Player SP and iTunes. You can download Real Player SP here, and you can download iTunes here. Both are also free.
The biggest advantage to using AAC+ technology is that it allows HPR to broadcast using less bandwidth while delivering high quality audio. Essentially, we can deliver the same audio quality via AAC+ using one-quarter of the bandwidth that a traditional MP3 stream would require. MP3 served Internet Broadcasters well in the 1990s and 2000s. It's time now to forge ahead so that we can deliver the best quality signal to our listeners - both at home and in their cars. That's right, one of the biggest advantages to AAC+ encoding is that it will allow HPR to be received in FM Stereo quality in listeners' cars - even in areas where high-speed mobile service is not available! It will also allow listeners in rural areas who have very slow or metered DSL, Satellite or Dial-up services to hear HPR in FM Stereo quality for the first time ever! Try it yourself: listen to our Broadband stream and then switch to our Lowband stream. You may need headphones and a trained ear to tell the two apart!

We welcome your feedback on this new technology at: 417.243.0043 or email: support@hpr.org