OK, I took the plunge and ordered Direct TV today including Whole Home Service. Will be one HDDVR and one HD receiver. My question is this: can the set connected to the HD receiver schedule (initiate) a recording or do all recordings have to be initiated at the set with the HDDVR?
Whole Home Service
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You will be able to initiate a recording from the HD receiver. You will not be able to pause live TV and/or go back from that receiver. 
That is not what customer service told me. They said that I could view a recorded show at the set with the HD receiver but that I could not initiate recording. They said that the only way to initiate a recording from the second set would be to have an HDDVR at both sets. I want to be able to initiate a recording and view a recorded show from either set and want to make sure that I've ordered the right equipment - install is scheduled for Monday morning. Your help is appreciated.
They have it wrong. With MRV (Multi Room Viewing, AKA Whole Home) you can schedule, record, view, and (if enabled on the DVR) delete programs from any Hxx series receiver on the system. You can basically do anything that you could do on the DVR EXCEPT pause/rewind live TV and initiate on-demand downloads (but once they are initiated they can be watched using MRV). THAT you would need a second DVR for.
Now the only catch with recording is, if you start watching something on the HD receiver, and decide 20 minutes in that you want to record it, it will NOT "retro-record" the first 20 minutes like it would if you were watching on the DVR itself. It'll only record from the point where you hit Record. This is because the HD receiver does not have a live buffer. So you have to either schedule it in advance, or make sure you manually record as soon as the show starts.
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You can start or view a recording from any receiver connected to the DECA. What you cannot do however is pause TV on a receiver that is not a DVR. So, if you get a HR-24 (HD DVR) and an H-24 (HD Receiver), you will be able to do the very same things on both with the exception that you will not be able to pause LIVE TV on the H-24. If you want the ability to pause on the H-24 and pick up where you left off in the next room with the HR-24, you will have to set the program on the H-24 to record and then view if from the recording.
I hope that makes sense. I was a 3 year customer at DishNetwork and just switched to DirecTV last weekend. I went with the Whole Home with 3 receivers, 1 HD DVR and 2 HD Receivers. I really like it. With the 2+ receivers, you will be able to do basically everything you could with the DishNetwork VIP622/722 with the exception of pausing LIVE TV on the non-DVR, however, you gain the ability to view HD programming on all TVs, plus there is a workaround to the Pause issue if you do not mind hitting the record button and watching with a slight delay.
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