The 522 sucks. It stutters on playback almost from the getgo.
You can actually watch certain features on the receiver slow down if you're recording two things at once, or something with a high bitrate. The "Name Based Recording" is a pale comparison of TiVo's season pass functionality. Oh, rather than be able to record "new episodes", anything made this year is new. Yep, that's right. In December 2005, it will think something created in January 2005 is a new episode.
You'll almost certainly be happier if you buy a R-10 now for your main room, free receivers for your satellite rooms.
DirecTV is working with a company called UCentric to make a "whole house DVR" which will be out in 2006. More stuff scattered across these forums.
I went DirecTV (without DVR) to Cable, with TiVo Series 1, to Dish, to DirecTV with DirecTiVo.
The lattermost is the most full featured, stable thing I've had the pleasure of using. Highly recommended.