After my video recorder stopped working I bought a Panasonic DMR-HWT130 digital video recorder it had a good specification. However, it has a HDMI output whereas my TV has only a SCART socket.

Well the SCART connector isn't actually meant to do YPbPr at all, nor any higher than 480i. Both types of component can routinely do 480p or (quite often) 720p over SCART.