After several years with one service, we are thinking of switching between Dishnet and U-verse. (If I need to specify which direction, let me know?)

Before making a final decision, however, I began to wonder about the DVR data exists on our current DVR (that's why I chose this forum; it is apparently an integrated system).

So my questions include: should I simply buy an inexpensive harddrive and backup the entire content of the DVR to a harddrive (hereafter HD)? If I so, will I be able to move it from a HD device to the new integrated receiver with DVR? Or must  I convert each program (movies, shows, things we have recorded over multiple years) to via my EyeTV device to DVDs (incredibly tedious as I just looked and I would have to do 40-plus DVDs minimally)? Or may I expect that the serviceperson who comes to install the news system will have a solution to moving all those DVR data to the new system? Or am I overlooking some simple way to do this?

Surely, others have had to deal with saving content collected over years on one DVR system to another?

Finally, what am I failing to anticipate?

Thanks