HDTV to DVI/HD-15 converters/scalers

I’ve been glancing into this as an option to use my older projector with HDTV signals. But I figured I would ask about this, does anyone have any first hand knowledge of what kind of losses would be associated in using a converter to scale a 1080p image to 1024x768. But I’d imagine it would still be quite a lot better than the 480i that I’m pushing through it right now.

Mainly I finally want to take advantage of the HD channels but havn’t been able to due to the lack of component or HDMI input and was trying to find an alternative solution.

But basically I’m just asking in regards to picture quality if anyone has seen the losses off-hand or if it’s not noticeable.