I have 2 HDVR2's and a DSR600 and I wanted to upgrade to HD and I called Directv and asked about HD and activating a HR-10 250 from Ebay and DTV told me that they are upgrading thier HD technology to provide even more HD content and that the HR-10 WILL NOT WORK with the new HD technology but will still work with the SD channels and possibly the OTA HD channels. So very soon the HR-10 250 will be a doorstop as far as HD goes. probably explains the HR-10 250 price drop on Ebay huh?

How to hook up an HR10-250 AND an HR20 to DirecTV and OTA.

1) Both units must be subscribed to DirecTV.

This is because they need the program guide, but even though the HR10-250 cannot decode the new mpeg4 channels, it can still get OTA, SD and the remaining mpeg2 HD channels (although the mpeg2's will go away in 2008). However, it is only $5 more for the second receiver, versus $12 with TiVo.

2) You must have a 5-lnb dish for the HR20 to get the new mpeg4 satellites at 103 & 99 degrees. Both units will still get the older sats at 101, 110, & 119.

3) You will need a bare minimum of two cables from the dish. To have dual tuners on each unit, you will need 4 cables. Sometime Real Soon Now, something called SWM will allow up to 4 HR20s to share one cable. No help for the HR10, though.

4) To get OTA, you need EITHER an additional cable (from the OTA antenna), or you need to diplex the OTA onto one of the cables going to the HR20 (not the HR10).

DirectTV will tell you that you cannot diplex onto a cable attached to a 5lnb dish. In some situations with very long cable runs, this may be true, but there is a way with medium-to-short cable runs (under maybe 100 feet).

Because of the way that the new sat signals come down the cable in the UHF band, a conventional placement of the HR20's "BBCs" (B-band converters) will not allow the use of diplexers. HOWEVER, if one places the BBC on the diplexed line on the FAR side of the FAR diplexer (between the dish or multiswitch and the first diplexer), the UHF is bumped up to 2GHz at that point rather than at the recommended point (back of HR20). Upside: No longer interferes with OTA. Downside: faster signal attenuation due to cable length at the higher frequency.

5) As with all diplexers, you should use DC blocks at the OTA connectors, in and out.

6) At the output of the second diplexer, you can use a common TV splitter to feed OTA to both boxes.

Note: This also works for people with only an HR20 to get OTA and dual tuner with only 2 cables.