ORF Hitradio Ö3 (128k HLS)

ORF Hitradio Ö3 (128k HLS) is one of two entries in Austria whose names are the same but for a number, and this one's number is one hundred and twenty-eight. A broadcaster numbering its streams like that is separating feeds, not stations, so read the number as the part that matters.

This is one of the quieter entries in Austria's listing, at 98 of 103. Stations at this depth are usually community, religious or single genre broadcasters rather than national networks, and the country's numbered pages are the only route to them.

Where Austria's stations mostly use MP3, this one uses AAC. Worth a line only because it is a difference, and because the country page's format breakdown is one of the quicker ways to see which providers a national dial runs on.

The stream is served as an HLS playlist, which is the format broadcasters use to switch bitrates on the fly and the one a plain browser audio element will not open. Nothing is wrong with the station; the player on this page simply cannot follow that kind of link without a library. The extension carries one and handles it.

The stream is served from orf-live-oe3.mdn.ors.at, an address one other entry in Austria uses as well. A small shared host is usually a group of stations under one owner or one technical provider rather than a platform.