In reverse order:

Not just picture, but also sound, stand to be seriously compromised by underperforming cable. The extra price you pay for better equipment is largely due to the higher spec, closer toleranced components which enhance performance: passing the signal through the giveaway/low priced cable is going to do it no favours whatsoever. Whether it be scart or audio cable, the rule of thumb is basically the same: you should be allowing about 10% of the unit price for the lead to go with it.

It depends on what you want your DVD player to do, but the requirements for a recorder and playback machine are quite different, particularly if you're expecting surround capablities and the like: the recorder circuitry is going to be quite a high percentage of the total price, so that an expensive recorder will tend to play back with the same quality as a rather cheaper player. If you're only intending to time-shift soaps and reality TV shows, then it's probably not an issue, but if you want to watch technically excellent pre-recorded DVDs, and record as well, then in a perfect world, two separate machines make more sense.

I need some clarification re DVD recorders, too.  I've just installed a new one on my 2nd TV, mainly for the purpose of playback in the bedroom (in fact it's to replace a cheapo player that's come to the end of its natural).  I find, however, that it won't play any of the discs I recorded - and finalised - on my other recorder.  Commercial DVDs play fine but my recordings just get an 'error disc' message.  I was told by the help line that it probably doesn't recognise the system used by the other recorder.  By this she didn't mean the generic + - RAM formatting but the actual software used by my recorder.  This strikes me as utter nonsense (for one thing I've been recording downstairs and playing on the cheapo player upstairs and sending recordings to friends and relatives for two years without any problems) but I thought I'd run it past you knowledgeable lot before selecting a new recorder.  I'm going to take this one back for a refund; but if what the help desk said is true how on earth is one supposed to select a compatible recorder/player.

Of course I might just buy a new cheapo player pro tem and await developments in the format wars.  Or buy a hard disk recorder - though I'd need one that can easily be downloaded to DVD because my American sis-in-law is addicted to 'Eastenders' and I have to record the omnibus every Sunday and post it to the US.

All musings gratefully accepted.

Sticking to the same manufacturer might help, though the DVDs that have whizzed back and forth from here since the inception of this board and PM facilities seem only once to have caused problems, and even then, an indentical copy made from the same master on the same machine solved the issue. I'm using an LG HDD/DVD recorder, and it does its job brilliantly, although the first one I had was faulty, and was swapped without fuss. It's useful to be able to edit stuff down before burning it to DVD, and it has had no problems playing discs from any other source.

Although these machines are so cheap and plentiful, it's worth remembering that they contain complex technology which needs to be set up very accurately: the cheap ones contain chipsets with rather wider tolerances than dearer models, and if just one or two chips are marginally outside specification that can affect certain parameters enough to shut down certain functions.

Re the second of those points: I don't know anything about DVD recorders but I do know about retail law. If you have purchased product which is faulty, then you are entitled to a refund by the method you originally paid with. Gift-voucher or exchange-only refunds are only something the shop can insist on if you are returning product because you don't want it (as opposed to it being faulty). So you were quite right to insist.

Just an update on this, which will open a further can of worms: the make of disc, as well as its type, has ramifications. This happens with CD-Rs as well: an engineer I was talking to over the weekend reminded me of this, and I'd forgotten that my bedside CD player doesn't like one brand of CD-Rs at all, whilst my HDD/DVD recorder won't perform all functions with certain manufacturers' discs... Fun, eh?