Personally I'm not really taken with the idea of a HDD/DVD player combo - I just don't really see the point. A HDD/DVDR combo allows you to timeshift on your HDD, edit on your HDD and then dub things you want to keep to DVD-R without a reduction in quality. Not everyone wants or needs this so why not consider a proper HDD recorder such as a TivO if your certain you never want to archive.
Alternatively if you need a DVD player and HDD functionality then why not get a standalone DVD recorder? Panasonic, JVC, Toshiba and Pioneer models all act like HDD models. Then if you do record something you want to keep then you just don't erase the disk.