Okay so I have decided to get a Panasonic Plasma tv (TH50PC77U) from Costco. No I want a DVD/VCR combo to go with it. Costco has a Panasonic model and a Sony model (RDRVX525). Both say the have HDMI inputs, so will they work to upconvert my current DVD's and tapes to almost HD quailty? I have searched the site and I need help.

Upconverting or scaling simply means the SD material is made to fit the resolution of your display. Depending on how well it is done, it can look very nice. It will not look HD as there is not enough information to deal with. Your display may do a better job on its own.

I doubt the processing in a dvd recorder/vcr is going to do a very good job compared to say, an Oppo dvd player or one of the Blu-ray / HD DVD players with an HQV chip in it.

Thank you for your help. I am just trying to learn all this.

http://www.audioholics.com/education/display-formats-technology/video-processing-in-dvd-players-receivers-and-displays/how-to-determine-who-is-doing-the-processing.html

The article above has a lot of good information in it about video processing.