It could get very complicated if you are wanting to record tv on both a DVR and a DVD. Do you know for a fact that your DVD recorder has it's own tuner? If it does not, you will only be able to record the channel that your Dish box is tuned to if you can connect it to the Dish box. If it does have it's own tuner, then perhaps a splitter would do. To me, installing an amplifier/splitter on the incoming satellite feed would be the best way to approach this. Each device could then be programmed and controlled separately. We still need to know if there are enough inputs on the tv to accept multiple devices and what type they are. It might be possible to accomplish this with a splitter only, but you might need a satellite tech to determine if the signal loss by being split would be detrimental to viewing/recording.

The easiest way I find is to hook everything to an A/V receiver. I have 6 components going through the receiver, and it is so simple, just pick the appropriate input on the receiver and your using that component. As soon as I buy a receiver that converts any input to HDMI, I won't have to change inputs on the TV anymore either.

They should be. Chances are both the DVD player and the Video Player use both use a Yellow RCA connector for the video signal along with Red & White RCA connectors for Stereo audio. It should be as simple as disconnecting the cables from the back of the video player and plugging them into the back of the DVD player. That being said, you really want to check if the TV has an S-Video connector. This cable would replace the Yellow RCA cable from the DVD player, and would be a significant improvement in picture quality.

That just means that the TV is not capable of stereo. You can hook up a DVD player to it and it will sound just as "good" as the way it does now. Okay you may get only one channel (right or left) technically, and you could combine the channels (go to Radio Shack) and ask for a cable to connect stereo RCA to mono RCA), but I doubt you would notice the difference if you are satisfied with the picture/sound quality you have now with the unit. - Jim