I've got a collection of some HD videos I'd like to transfer to the new
HR20 from my 10-250, is there a way of doing this seemingly simple task?

No, if it was that simple, you would not have to ask!

Your only hope is to rerecord them on your HR20, if and when they are repeated; or record them as high quality SD 16x9 DVDs with a DVD recorder.

There is a "hack" that allows files to be extracted from the HR10-250 in MPEG-2 HD, but you want "simple" answers...

Simple like using the USB,s-cable or ?? I should have known moving video would in-tale a hack instead of something useful for consumers. oh well

Simple like using the USB,s-cable or ?? I should have known moving video would in-tale a hack instead of something useful for consumers. oh well
DVRs were never intended to be archival devices. If they were, they would need much bigger HDs to begin with...

You can use them to archive, but don't expect built in features for a purpose that they were not designed for...

DVRs were never intended to be archival devices. If they were, they would need much bigger HDs to begin with...

You can use them to archive, but don't expect built in features for a purpose that they were not designed for...
Fortunately today you can connect an external eSata drive to the HR20 and when it gets full you can add another one. The only drawback is that the recordings on the external drive are going to be locked to the receiver that was used when they were recorded. So you could theorectically record hundreds of hours of shows and movies, but if you were to have to replace the DVR in a few years, then those recordings would no longer be playable. Perhaps someday DirecTV will follow Dish's lead and link the external drives to the account instead of a particular receiver, then any archived recordings would be playable as long as you stayed with DirecTV. That seems like it would be a really good way to lock in customers for a long long time.

DVRs were never intended to be archival devices. If they were, they would need much bigger HDs to begin with...

Uh, what?
All they had to do was add functional firewire ports to it and this would be a non-issue. But TIVO decided to be dongs about it, so now only are you paying a monthly fee to download schedule data (lol) which is freely available over cable/satellite network itself, you're also paying for a brick that locks your content into a single device without any possibility of (legal) archiving from it. boo, you people need to get with the program and boycott tivo, maybe if enough people did, they would realize they need firewire on their units :)

Uh, what?
All they had to do was add functional firewire ports to it and this would be a non-issue. But TIVO decided to be dongs about it, so now only are you paying a monthly fee to download schedule data (lol) which is freely available over cable/satellite network itself, you're also paying for a brick that locks your content into a single device without any possibility of (legal) archiving from it. boo, you people need to get with the program and boycott tivo, maybe if enough people did, they would realize they need firewire on their units :)Programming information is not free. A portion of your cable / satelite subscription goes to pay for it. Nor is DVR support and software development free -- every provider charges extra for that.

DirecTV set the specifications for the HR10, not Tivo. If DirecTV had wanted Firewire on the HR10 Tivo, it would have it. The same goes for their newer HR20.

Perhaps you missed it, but Tivo recently announced (http://www.tivocommunity.com/tivo-vb/showthread.php?t=365225) that a software update is coming in November that will enable multi-room viewing (MRV), Tivo->PC transfers (TivoToGo), and PC->Tivo transfers (TiVoToComeBack) on the TivoHD and TivoSeries3. Most importantly, high-definition transfers will be supported for all three features.

Will DirecTV bring these features (high-definition transfers to and from PC) to the HR20? Probably not, but if he has modified his HR10 to allow transfer of those recordings to his PC, then he probably could transfer those recordings to a new TivoHD (for OTA / cable) in November.