A little off the standard track, but here goes:
My Church (me specifically) is putting in an HD video distribution system - a fixed Panasonic lower-end broadcast camera, to screens in the parish hall, kids room, sacristy, etc. We're now thinking that recording of weddings and such would be a good add-on.
Yes, we know that they will just get 480i recording, but as part of any recommendation, are there any players that will take either 720 or 1080 signals and downconvert by themselves (otherwise I was looking at the svideo.com products).
The system (video plus audio, dimming, etc) is AMX touchpanel controlled, so RS-232 is preferable to IR, although if it has to be IR, something that does one-touch recording is preferable, so that I don't have to replicate several button presses.
Most importantly - looking for a rock solid unit - something that they can just shove a disc in to, hit record, and know that there will always be a finished DVD at the end of the ceremony. The unit doesn't have to do anything special at all - just record... it'll never be used for playback or anything else.
My original choice was the DataVideo MP-6000 - but it's just a bit out of budget... We are willing to spend some pretty decent $$, but hopefully not $1300.
I know it's a tall order, but what might you recommend?
Thanks,

You cannot get built-in downconversion at any price: all recorders require 480i at their line inputs. Your budget is unrealistic if you want RS-232 control: as recently as six years ago, the price discrepancy between a normal JVC or Panasonic SVHS tape recorder and one with RS-232 was over $1000, for otherwise identical models. The DataVideo MP-6000 is about as cheap as it gets for pro DVD recorders, and it only records to +R media which can be a big problem. A better alternative is the custom ruggedized industrial recorders sold via the bcdusa website. These edge closer to $2000 but would likely be more useful than the cheaper DataVideo. There are two or three semi-pro JVC models that have RS-232 and cost just under $1000, but these are to be avoided like the plague if reliability is a concern: half of them ship with defective burners right out of the box and JVCs are hardly known for durability- they're a joke. The only other option I've ever seen was a studio Pioneer DVD recorder that costs in excess of $4000 and is long discontinued.

Production environments that require professional control interfacing and reliable mechanicals cannot be equipped cheaply. RS-232 and rugged construction costs serious money, its a very small captive market compared to throwaway consumer gear and the mfrs price these things accordingly.

I knew I was probably shooting for the moon, but was hoping there might have been some unit that I hadn't heard of yet. I had also looked at the BCD units as well.

All things considered then, fulfilling our wish list of 232 and rugged doesn't seem like it's going to happen. Any suggestions on an IR, consumer level device that's a standout?? From what I've read it's either Pana's or Pioneer's...

Thanks,

The market has really dried up in decent consumer gear as well, very very few options there. The Panasonic models without built in tuners are pretty tough, look for models EA-18 or EA-38. Pioneers are now very hard to find, but you can still sometimes snag the final DVR-460 model from Canadian clearance dealers on eBay. The Pioneer has the advantage of built-in hard drive which can sometimes be quite useful. The Panasonics run about $200, the Pio $300-350.

Have you considered a PC-based solution? I have not had much experience with roll-your-own systems, but I'm pretty sure there must be vendors who can assemble a package of encoder board, RS-232 interface, perhaps the downconversion interface you want, and one or more burners. While cost might be comparable to a higher-end turnkey recorder, you have the advantage of user replaceable and upgradable parts and software. While that can be a double-edged sword (millions of people curse MicroSoft over Windows every minute), the flexibility can be worth it. Long-term, the first thing to go in any DVD recording hardware is the burner, and only a PC-hosted solution can offer simple, off-the-shelf user replacement of burners at minimal cost, perhaps $30.

I use a dvico fusion 3 hdtv card and a ATI 3870x2 video card with a older quad core AMD 9600 and I get HDTV and external captures at about any resolution or format I want with a few bits of software and work. It also worked fine with a dual core 4600 and a ati 1900xt with XP and 2 gig of ram. I have win7 and 4 gig now.
So I'm sure CitiBear's suggestion is a good one. If you have somebody that knows how to build a PC and setup the OS and hardware extras you can do it or have a shop build one that will do what you want according to what you said it needs to do.
The burner will be about the cheapest part, I recently paid 28 shipped for the latest fastest 24x dvd burner out for now, a BD burner can be had for around 150 now on a good sale as long as you don't need the latest and greatest.
Good luck with it.

Any suggestions on an IR, consumer level device that's a standout?? From what I've read it's either Pana's or Pioneer's...
The only recent consumer models out there I would even consider that have IR blasters are (were) the Panasonic EA18 and EA38.

There were some recent LG's that had them, also, but I wouldn't touch those with a ten-foot pole. Besides the lousy build quality/QC, they only had composite out (great PQ from the digital tuners, supposedly, but nothing but problems otherwise).