My friend's DVD recorder previously belonged to me. Checking the discs I recorded on it, it seems that in 1-hour mode, the sound is encoded at 384kbps.
I will also say that both the digital tuner output and DVD recorder input have S-Video; I assume we should go with that over composite?
Also, it's rerunning Thursday 9/25 at 10:30 AM, and again on Monday 9/29 at 9:30 PM, if anybody else wants to take a shot at it. (Anybody else have the ability to pick up ThisTV over the air, like my friend does?)