But, if you don't want to buy a separate STB, and you are happy with recording from your TV's digital signal (which will mean leaving the TV switched on if you want to record Freeview while you are out, and will stop you from watching anything else while the Freeview channel you want to record is playing) then as long as your TV is capable of outputting its digital signal via one or more scarts - and most are - then yes, any DVD recorder will be capable of recording Freeview.
Simply connect a scart cable between the TV and the DVD recorder, select scart as the source (probably AV1), select the correct Freeview channel on the TV, when the programme starts press record, when the programme finishes press stop.
No tuning in is necessary - it's not going to be recording from its analogue tuner when it is recording Freeview.