In message , Paul
writes:
[]
to it, just so I could "boot and watch TV" :-) VLC does
the watching. Unfortunately, the TV tuner feature
in the Windows VLC, doesn't work, not even in VLC 3.

I've used a TV tuner from VLC in Windows. However, if by "the TV tuner
feature" you meant the ability to _scan_, then no - I had to enter the
frequency manually.
[]
Here, I have only one broadcast channel that multiplexes,
and it is multiplexing HD and SD with the same content,
as elements of its multiplex. Which to me seems pretty
pointless, but, I'm just a TV watcher and what do I know.

Maybe so people who only have a T1 decoder can still see it? (Or can T1
and T2 data not be incorporated into one multiplex anyway?)

The rule of thumb used to be "cable multiplexes like crazy,
while OTA sends one stream per channel". But it looks like

Not here in UK! We have between three and six (IIRR) multiplexes (nearly
everywhere should be able to get the three, with - I think - about 90%
[by population rather than area?] can get all of them); each multiplex
carries about half a dozen SD channels. (That's not the full story:
there are HD [T2] multiplexes [there have been SD channels only
available to those with T2 decoders, I'm not sure if that's currently
the case], radio channels, data channels, ...). The multiplexes have
_tried_ to remain roughly where - in spectrum terms - the old analogue
channels were for each area, to minimise the amount of aerial
replacement people had to do, but have only moderately succeeded in that
(not least because there are more multiplexes than there were analogue
channels [4 + 1]).

the pressure is on your TV market, to shave more channels
off the top end. Here, 720p is probably as low as we go,
and nobody would transmit 480i on OTA.

If 480i is SD, and OTA means over-the-air terrestrial broadcasting, then
here that's still the majority of OTA! (Except it'll be more than 480
because of the 625/525 difference. But most of our terrestrial channels
are SD/T1, with a few duplicated on HD/T2. [As I said, I'm not sure if
we have any SD/T2-only at the moment; we did at one point.])

One other thing to note - I don't think Windows really scans.

Yes, I didn't find a way to tell VLC to scan in Windows. (Though as our
multiplexes carry multiple channels, that wasn't _as_ frustrating.)
[]
Paul
--
J. P. Gilliver. UMRA: 1960/1985 MB++G()AL-IS-Ch++(p)Ar@T+H+Sh0!:`)DNAf

the plural of 'anecdote' is not 'evidence'. Professor Edzart Ernst, prudential
magazine, AUTUMN 2006, p. 13.