How good will HD footage look on SD-DVD

I saw "BAGHDAD ER" on HBO, which will be released on DVD at the end of Aug. Good documentary by the way. It was shot on a Sony Z1 and I got to say it didn't look any better on my SD tv than VX footage. At least it didn't look worse, like the other shows I mentioned above. Some of the lines on the ceiling tiles just sort of disappeared. So much for detail. I burned some JVC HD100 footage from the web to DVD- that looked soft. And when Kevin Smith was on the Tonight Show, they showed a snippet of footage from what looked like a behind the scenes doc of "CLERKS 2", and I think I read here, he used a HVX. That looked soft too. Everything I see downconverted seems to lack detail.

Does downconverting cause detail loss? Is everybody doing something wrong?

Will a downconverted HD > SD DVD look softer than SD footage > SD DVD?
If my final output is SD DVD, am I better off (with better results) with a SD camcorder?

I find it hard to believe that all these camera operators are turning their detail off, turning their pictures to mush, and are happy with the results.

When these cameras first came out everybody said in HD you'll see a difference but in SD it'll just look the same. Now, a lot of people say HD will look better anyway you see it, but all I keep seeing is mushy footage from downconverted HD. I don't want to buy an HD cam and have my SD DVDs looking like what I'm seeing on tv. It's pretty confusing.
 
I'm not sure about the others, Mr. Trent, but perhaps it's the software that can't handle downconversion properly? I've downloaded several m2t files from this site and others to see what the prosumer HD cameras could do (Sony Z1u, Canon XL H1, JVC HD100 and Panasonic HVX200).

Using Canopus Procoder 2.0, I convert the m2t files directly to elementary MPEG-2 DVD files (.m2v and .wav). I have always seen excellent results.

Now I'm sure my paltry $600 program can't be better than the $$$$ equipment the networks/cable stations own. But I can't tell you why the footage from these cameras looks like garbage. Even going over the air, they shouldn't look like "badly shot 8mm footage."
 
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