The pcHDTV series cards, especially the HD-5500, can be used to record both HDTV (ATSC, QAM-256, etc.) as well as NTSC, analog TV. Mind you, all of the work of converting the analog signal into an MP2 stream suitable for recording is done by your system's processor, not on the card (there's no MPEG encoder on the card), so it will use quite a few processor cycles while you're recording an analog program. And, there's a good chance that the picture will look bad and the sound will be messed up. But, if you're still game to try it, here's how to set a pcHDTV card up.
Begin in MythTV backend setup, Capture Cards, by selecting "New capture card" to add a new capture card and then define the pcHDTV card as a DVB card, not as a pcHDTV card (now, that's intuitive). Also, unless you're into crazy, experimental stuff, pick Recording Options and then on the page that pops up, set Max Recordings to 1. After you're finished, save the card's definition.
Next, select "New Capture Card" again and define a second capture card, this time as an "Analog V4L capture card". Set the device parameters like this (example shows 'x' for the device number):
Video device: /dev/videox
VBI device: /dev/vbix
Audio device: /dev/dspx+1
Note that the correct DSP device for sound input is the device number plus 1. Then, in the device options fields, be sure to set the Audio sampling Rate Limit to 48000. When you're done, save the card's definition.
If you have more than one capture card, you should perform the same two steps over for each additional card. You'll end up with something that looks like this:
DVB: 0
V4L: /dev/video0
DVB: 1
V4L: /dev/video1
We prefer to define two video sources, one for the HDTV recordings and one for the Analog recordings. That way, we can have channel numbers that overlap and we can easily switch between analog/HDTV recording, simply by selecting the source. We suppose, if you wished, you could just define one source and use it for both types of recording. However, another consideration is that the pcHDTV cards don't seem to switch between ATSC/QAM-256 and NTSC very well and having two sources allows you to break things out better.
Let's proceed as if we were going to define two sources. From the Video Source page, select "New Video Source". Let's say it is a cable source. Call it "Cable-HD". If you're using Schedule's Direct or XMLTV, set that part up. Otherwise, you can select "Transmitted guide only" or nothing for Listings Grabber.
Now, define a second video source by selecting "New Video Source" again. Call it "Cable-An". Again, set up the schedule puller or nothing, as appropriate.
Its time to associate the video sources with the capture cards so that MythTV knows which cards to use to record programs from each of the sources. Do this from the Input Connections page. Begin by selecting "[DVB:x]".
Set the display name to "Card x". Select the Video Source (in this case, "Cable-HD"). If this is the first card that you're associating with the video source, you can click Scan For Channels to fill in the list of channels available from that source. Scanning will take quite a while so be patient. Then, if you have a listings grabber defined, you can click Fetch Channels From Listings Source to fill in the channel information (if it hasn't already been filled in from the HDTV channel definitions).
On the second page, set the recording grouping to a unique value, instead of "Generic". The input groups for the DVB card or cards are usually predefined by MythTV when you add them so its simply a matter of choosing the obvious one. If that's not the case, click on Create A New Input Group and define one. For the DVB cards, this should be something like "DVB0". Then, set Input Group 1 to new group. You can leave Input Group 2 as "Generic".
After saving the DVB input source's options, select: "[V4L: /dev/videox](Television)"; "[V4L: /dev/videox](Composite1)"; or "[V4L: /dev/videox](S-Video)", depending on which input is connected on the pcHDTV card.
Set the display name to "Card x - Analog". Select the Video Source (in this case, "Cable-An"). Again, if this is the first card that you're associating with the video source, you can click Scan For Channels to fill in the list of channels available from that source. Scanning will, again, take quite a while so be patient. Then, if you have a listings grabber defined, you can click Fetch Channels From Listings Source to fill in the channel information.
On the second page, set the recording grouping to the same unique value, instead of "Generic", that you chose for the DVB card (e.g. "DVBx"). The reason for doing this here (and above) is so that MythTV doesn't try to do HDTV and analog recording on the same pcHDTV card at the same time (since it sees it as two devices). By grouping the devices this way, it will only try to start a single recording on the card at any time. To do this, set Input Group 1 to appropriate group. You can leave Input Group 2 as "Generic".
The channel scan may not identify all of the channels that it finds. The analog channels are especially unlikely to have any identifying information associated with them. If you do not have a listings source and don't fetch the channels from said source, you'll have to edit the channel information by hand using the Channel Editor.
Identify the channels from your cable TV lineup or by watching each one for a few minutes (if you live in beautiful, sunny Norwood, see Unnamed Analog Channels Mapped To HDTV, below). Using the channel editor, fill in each unidentified channel with its channel number, call sign and description. Note that channel numbers must be unique within each of the video sources (e.g. there can only be one channel 2 in Cable-HD and Cable-An). However, you can have an analog channel and digital channel in the same video source with the same channel number, if you use the underscore notation for the HD channels (e.g. channel 2 and channel 2_1).
Actually, the channel numbers don't have to be unique within the same video source. But, the capture card will only tune to the first one that it finds with the non-unique channel number so you may never be able to get to the second one.
Incidentally, you should set the "Use on air guide" flag in each of the HDTV channel's entries so that they will attempt to use the on-air guide for late schedule updates. While you're tweaking this flag in channel entries, you can set the flag to not display the channel in the guide and when channel surfing in LiveTV.
If you wish to avoid confusion while you're editing the channels, you can choose either Cable-HD or Cable-An in the channel editor's Video Source selection field and it will only show those channels, instead of all the channels. Then, keep the channel numbers unique within the viewed channels.