Best HD to SD Downconvert: AJA or Blackmagic?

After nearly 4 days of using Compressor to downconvert HD to SD for DVD use with almost every iteration you can imagine, and reading dozens of posts, and talking with a lot of professionals, I've decided the best quality is going to be a hardware conversion.

Do you have an AJA Kona LHe Plus card, or Blackmagic Decklink Studio card? How have they performed? Complaints? And, in particular, how does the downcoversion look?

I talked with an AJA rep today and he said that Blackmagic is not true "hardware" conversion: it is software inside the card. Do you know anything about this? Splitting hairs? Sales pitch? Does it matter?

I look forward to hearing your card recomendations.

Larry