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Depends on the systems, and how smart and or dumb they are. Some DVRs had a IR emitter plug in so that the DVR can control the cable box/sat box and use the service's box as a tuner.
If the box was made by/for a cable sat provider it will only work on their cable service, if it was made by Tivo you usually gotta pay a Tivo subscription for it to work , if it is an open (not made for/tied to a service provider) box like my Panasonic DMR-E80H then there is hope you can use it for free.
Your TV service plays a big part too. I don't know about satellite, but many cable companies are eliminating/severely cutting unencrypted channels. Most DVRs can only tune unencrypted channels (NTSC or clear QAM), and those that can tune encrypted ones need you to buy/rent a cable card. If all/most of the channels you care about are encrypted then you probably need to use a cable box to tune them....That means you can either set the box to the channel you like and manually change the box your self each time you want to watch another channel (some boxes prevent this by shutting off in 1-4 hours of no remote control activity), and use the DVR to record the box output or you can you can get a DVR with an IR emitter that will control the box.....
You might also be able to get somewhere using a HTPC as a DVR.
It is usually not as easy as it was in the VCR era...Cable/Sat/their Hollywood owners do NOT want ANYONE to record anything and thus make it as hard as they can.
Without good specifics it is hard to advise. You may be better off spending a few hours researching things your self.
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