HD on non-hd vcr?

[Milwaukee12]

Today I saw that FOX HD was on Channel 88 today.  I was happy to see that so I wanted to record it to catch some out of market tv news.  To my suprise, I am able to record the Fox 5 news onto a non hd dvd recorder.  Also when the MLB playoffs were on I decieded to see if I could get some screenshots on my non hd tv tuner card.  I could.  How is this possible?

Thanx!