I sketched this out to make sure I had it right, and in the process I had two thoughts. One is that since you're using composite video out of the Dish and out of the Philips DVD-R, why not stay with it for the record out of the 970? The composite-to-s-video transcoding isn't going to offer any benefit, and it may be that you have a bad or loose s-video connection (don't ask how many times an s-video connection has messed me up).

There's another that may be even easier, though. Since the only time you use the Dish's composite and analog outputs is when you are recording to the DVD-R and since you don't appear to have any other sources that you are interested in recording, why not run composite video and stereo analog audio straight from the Dish's output to the DVD-R's input? You could then record from the Dish to the DVD-R even when running a different source at the 970 (such as DVD or even the radio). Also, it might be worthwhile to step up from composite video and analog audio out of the DVD-R to component video and digital audio. For a touch of early-morning clarity (or not), here's my sketch as JPG (at a very high res to preserve my dubious handwriting) and PDF .