High def DVD recorders

[macman18]

I recently bought a Sony high def video camera and was told by the salesman at the store I bought it at that high definition dvd recorders will not be on the market yet for at least 6 to 8 months, so I won't be able to dump my footage from my camera and keep it at high definition, at least not until they come out with the recorders. I was searching on the internet though and found out that there are high def dvd recorder decks that claim that they can play back a program in high def 1080i. Does this mean that there are already high def dvd recorders on the market that I can record my camera footage to in 1080i quality? The recorder I was checking out is the Panasonic DMREH55S dvd recorder deck with 200 gig hard drive.
The product description does not say that it has an HDMI input which would be the best way for me to download the high def footage from my camera, unless I missed something. If this is not an actual high def recorder, does anyone know of a high def dvd recorder deck that would fit my needs? Thanks for any replies.

[RFBurns]

Howdy!

A true hi-def DVD recorder would utilize the MPEG-4 compression codec, which is what your Sony HD camera uses. Most "round-1" DVD recorders with the exception of professional/broadcast units only have the MPEG-2 codec.

Your transfered video will be clean, but not true HD. True HD is 1080P or higher, not 1080I.

1080I is Interlaced video, which means there is a gap in between each scan line, and the scan blanks as it re-traces back to write the next scan line. This is the reason why there is a gap between the lines.

1080P is Progressive video, which means there is NO gap between the scan lines. The scan writes consistantly, it does not blank, thus it writes the picture all the time and much faster than interlaced scanning. With that in mind, it is capable of producing finer detail, which means sharper resolution.