The market is a bloodbath out there at the moment and many, many porkettes are being told/sold by sales people.
There is no settled standard yet. That's it, that's all that matters.
However, Mrs Towers has, most regretably, seen and is now a true believer.
I'm going to rent for a year or 18 months - too many 'bargains' being pushed at the punters and the bit rates actually being put out by DAB radio shows me all I need to know. Promises of top quality transmission by the broadcasters is both fabrication and testiculation.
Too many production lines pumping out the wrong technology/tech spec but have to be sold. A marketing campaign to help this nonsense along (HD Ready) is disengenous at best.
Although the first domestic HD recorders have had poor reviews I think I will be aiming for the top level of resolution with the magic letter P following it. I can't remember the last time I recorded anything off air. The BBC are now in bed with a P2P company - Azureus - and broadband or the post is how we get the stuff the whole family watches together these days.
One final point - during a massive changeover of technology like this where a vast amount of transmitted or playback material is in the old legacy, low res format there's an very important extra point to consider. Given two or more finalists in kit you are considering and all things being reasonably equal insist on an extended comparison of the upscaling features - i.e. how low res is tweaked and appears on the screen.
Regards
Rob