With Mini-DV it would be better to go from the Mini-DV rather than a DVD, and you'd be able to do a true digital transfer. But if you were going from DVD, an analog transfer would give you the higher quality than using the VOB/MPEG files on the DVD. And for upressing for HD, you might want to think about going to 1080i, since then you would be upressing from an interlace signal to an interlace signal. Unfortunately, converting to a progressive signal is going to hurt your video anyway you do it.
