Just to revive a thread that I haven't paid enough attention to and don't quite know much about...

Could somebody explain to me in simple terms what the differences would be in these two units for a new DirecTV subscriber? Do both units works, or is one better for that than the other? I should be able to record multiple shows while I'm away, on multiple channels and have the DVR do the tuning (or controlling the receiver I have), right?

TIA