Not having local (or national) PBS HD via satellite pisses me off too. Sure, the HR20 does a great job of seamlessly integrating OTA with satellite... IF you can get the locals via antenna. It's very marginal for me, and I don't want to set it to record something and go to watch the show later...

I only have a sec, but.... we had standard def DirecTivo for about 3 years and totally loved it. Switched to HR20 about 2 months ago. Yes, it has its quirks. It only has 1 live TV buffer, etc. And it definitely has more glitches/hiccups than the Tivo did, like sometimes it takes me a few...

I KNOW the first HD channels will go live on 9/23, since it has to coincide with autumnal equinox. :-p

This doesn't really answer your question since it's a different receiver, but, we have an SD DirecTivo that we recently replaced with an HR20. I asked the same question of DirecTV and they said yes we'd be able to watch our recorded programs on the DirecTivo after it had been disconnected from...