virtual channel

For the SDRAM technology, see VC-RAM. In telecommunications, a logical channel number (LCN), also known as virtual channel in North America, is a channel designation which differs from the actual radio channel or frequency on which the signal travels.This is most often applied to television, where digital TV (DTV) channels are in-band adjacent-channel to analog ones. Channel 8 might use channel 32 for its ATSC or DVB transmission, but a virtual channel map or virtual channel table (VCT) allows viewers to tune to channel 8 on a digital set anyhow. DTV tuners typically scan all channels for this information while they are turned "off", and store it in memory for instant access later on.
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