A closed-tube method for determining the type and the viral load of a hepatitis C virus in a sample, if present, the method comprising: a) amplifying a portion of the HCV genome from the sample in an asymmetric RT-PCR reaction, thereby producing at least one amplicon; b) determining the viral load of the HCV in the sample by monitoring a rate of accumulation of the amplicon and correlating the rate of amplicon accumulation with the viral load, wherein monitoring is performed using an amplicon quantitation probe; c) hybridizing the amplicon with at least a first probe and a second probe, to form at least two target hybridization complexes, wherein: i) each probe is complementary or partially complementary to a nucleotide sequence within an HCV genome; ii) the nucleotide sequence within the HCV genome shows sequence heterogeneity among at least two HCV types; iii) hybridization complexes comprising said first probe and said nucleotide sequence have a distinguishing hybridization property that differentiates at least two HCV types; and, iv) hybridization complexes comprising said second probe and said nucleotide sequence have a distinguishing hybridization property that differentiates at least two HCV types, wherein the distinguishing hybridization property of step iv) is the same as the distinguishing hybridization property of step iii), and the at least two virus types differentiated by the first probe are different from the at least two HCV types differentiated by the second probe; d) measuring the distinguishing hybridization property of the target hybridization complexes to generate a hybridization profile for each hybridization complex; e) comparing the hybridization profiles to each other in a multidimensional analysis to generate a composite profile, and, f) correlating said composite profile with one of at least five HCV types, wherein an assignment of an HCV type is made by considering said hybridization complexes comprising said first probe and second probe, wherein the amplicon quantitation probe is designed to being complementary to the limiting amplicon strand and the HCV typing probes are designed to being complementary to the abundant excess amplicon strand. a) amplifying a portion of the HCV genome from the sample in an asymmetric RT-PCR reaction, thereby producing at least one amplicon; b) determining the viral load of the HCV in the sample by monitoring a rate of accumulation of the amplicon and correlating the rate of amplicon accumulation with the viral load, wherein monitoring is performed using an amplicon quantitation probe; c) hybridizing the amplicon with at least a first probe and a second probe, to form at least two target hybridization complexes, wherein: i) each probe is complementary or partially complementary to a nucleotide sequence within an HCV genome; ii) the nucleotide sequence within the HCV genome shows sequence heterogeneity among at least two HCV types; iii) hybridization complexes comprising said first probe and said nucleotide sequence have a distinguishing hybridization property that differentiates at least two HCV types; and, iv) hybridization complexes comprising said second probe and said nucleotide sequence have a distinguishing hybridization property that differentiates at least two HCV types, wherein the distinguishing hybridization property of step iv) is the same as the distinguishing hybridization property of step iii), and the at least two virus types differentiated by the first probe are different from the at least two HCV types differentiated by the second probe; i) each probe is complementary or partially complementary to a nucleotide sequence within an HCV genome; ii) the nucleotide sequence within the HCV genome shows sequence heterogeneity among at least two HCV types; iii) hybridization complexes comprising said first probe and said nucleotide sequence have a distinguishing hybridization property that differentiates at least two HCV types; and, iv) hybridization complexes comprising said second probe and said nucleotide sequence have a distinguishing hybridization property that differentiates at least two HCV types, wherein the distinguishing hybridization property of step iv) is the same as the distinguishing hybridization property of step iii), and the at least two virus types differentiated by the first probe are different from the at least two HCV types differentiated by the second probe; d) measuring the distinguishing hybridization property of the target hybridization complexes to generate a hybridization profile for each hybridization complex; e) comparing the hybridization profiles to each other in a multidimensional analysis to generate a composite profile, and, f) correlating said composite profile with one of at least five HCV types, wherein an assignment of an HCV type is made by considering said hybridization complexes comprising said first probe and second probe,