A Scart (RGB) cable will give good quality video on a (CRT) TV set.
Unfortunately a flicker fixer/scan doubler is not cheap nowadays (have they ever been?).
The DVD recorder's probably not RGB capable (thus needing a low quality composite signal - that the 500 doesn't offer), so chances are it won't give you any good pic. Same with VCR.
Some (few) TFT TVs have been reported to give good quality video, even including the flicker fixing of interlace modes, but I don't know if there's a list of known-goods.
