FYI, I was curious if this would work or not, so I tried it. I just got an Insignia brand (Best Buy House Brand) 26" widescreen HDTV with built in HD tuner. Besides having numerous inputs, it also has a digital audio output and rca audio and video outputs. I wondered what would happen if I recorded an HD program that I was watching to the HS2 ( from the tv's rca audio video output to the HS2 rca L1 inputs.

I tested it with a PBS showing of an Eric Clapton documentary. The program recorded to the hard drive and played back in the HDTV mode - the picture was 16:9, it filled the widescreen, no distortion of the image. The tv aspect ratio setting on the tv was set on full. When I switched the aspect ratio on the tv to natural, it showed the image as if it were a standard definition broadcast, the picture was in 4:3 mode (black bars on the left & right of the widescreen picture & the picture was stretched tall).

The picture was very good on xp recording speed. So, until an HD recorder comes out that is reasonably priced, this will be a reasonable solution to record an hdprogram to a standard dvd. Unless they start flagging the hd broadcast with a macrovision type copy protection. I would think this would work with later model panasonic dvd/hard drive recorders, unles they put some kind of copy flag in those.