9Gem goes HD as Nine gets ready for the Ashes Cricket

While Channel 9 may no longer have the rights to our “Summer of Cricket” there’s one last hurrah coming – the 2019 Ashes Series from England.

To ensure the coverage meets the exacting standards of Aussie TV Sports Fans in 2019 the Nine Network have launched a second HD channel.

9Gem is now available in HD in all capital cities, and that will come to NBN broadcast areas in the coming days.

It’s a big win for sports fans, and a huge technical challenge for the broadcast team at Nine.

The new HD channel (Channel 95), like the existing main HD channel (Channel 90) is using MPEG-4 compression technology which is not compatible with all Aussie TVs.

While it’s safe to say that’s not a concern for the hard core Ashes viewer, there will be some folks trying to tune to 95 who won’t be able to view it – If you can’t watch Channel 95 – it’s time for a new TV!

The new lineup brings Nine’s channel count to four Standard Definition, and two High Definition channels.

SD channels are 9, 9Go!, 9Gem and 9Life. (Channel 91 is an SD version of 9 that is a repeat of Channel 9 – does not utilise additional spectrum to broadcast, it’s what’s known as a logical channel number).

Nine are not the first to add a second HD channel, with SBS Launching Viceland HD recently – but they will fall behind next month when SBS’s new HD channel World Movies launches as the third HD channel for SBS.

There’s some amazing technical methods like “Statistical multiplexing” or Stat Muxing as it’s known which allows each channel to be flexible in its use of spectrum and helps squeeze all the content in!