I was looking at the latest prices for the new Pioneer DVR-A05 DVD-R writer when a friend showed this to me:
http://www.epinions.com/Panasonic_DMR_E30S___DMR_E30K_Progressive_Scan_DVD_Recorder_DVD_Players/display_~latest_prices
It's a home-theater unit that Panasonic makes to record on DVD-R and DVD-RAM. They were going for $1000 a few months ago; now they're at $500-$600. That's only about 2X the cost of the A05.
For that you get a DVD recorder with a Firewire port and the usual a/v inputs, as well as a progressive scan DVD player. For use with AMVs, I assume you could run the TV-out from your PC into this box and make a DVD in close to realtime. No need to muck around with authoring software. Or for high quality, render the vid to DV/NTSC and do a print-to-tape straight into the E30's Firewire port. (Note: these are educated guesses since I don't own one.)
It's not as versatile as a PC-based writer, but you do get the progressive scan player, ease of use (??), and something that can record TV shows (Adult Swim) and camcorder movies. And for not that much more money if the price continues to drop.


