kabanero: I have the Sony RDR-GX300 which is the successor to the RDR-GX7 and it too can only record in 480i (S-video or composite video in). It can play facory DVDs in 480p however - Sony's Superbit DVDs are especially nice.
the only HD recorders that I know about are mitsubishi, HSHD1100U, but it requires a firewire input, so without modifications your 811 will not be able to record in HD. I know people who have modified the dish 6000 receiver for a firewire output
Well bottom line then is NO DVD recorder currently records 480p or 1080i. I'm still happy with the phillips DVDR615 though I read horrible reviews of it. Not sure if I'll keep it though considering no 480p recording and I already have a dish 510 anyway. thanks everyone for their postings!
All DVD's are encoded interlaced. The de-interlacing is done by the player (not by the disc) and sent to the display as a progressive image(if the player is a progressive player), it is not disc dependent.
There is no such thing as a progressive DVD.
But there are "progressive DVD players"
If there were such a thing as a progressive DVD it would not be playable on older DVD players that are interlace only.