A receiver with HDMI switching would allow you to connect all of your HDMI components to the receiver and then use one HDMI cable to the TV. The 'switching' is the fact that the receiver sends only the signal it is receiving from whatever component is connected and since there is only cable to the TV, you never need to change the input on the TV. In other words, if you connect the dvd player to the receiver via HDMI and also the sat receiver via HDMI, when you press the DVD input, the receiver will be sending only the signal it is receiving from the dvd player. You can then switch to the sat receiver simply by pressing the Sat input on the receiver. Audio follows Video, so the audio will switch too. [The catch is that many receivers won't send the audio over the hdmi cable anyway and you will still need a separate digital audio cable to the receiver - but it will automatically switch the audio so that you hear the audio that matches the video].
If the receiver does not have HDMI switching you could connect both components directly to the TV but you have to change the TV input to whatever input is connected to the dvd player to view the dvd and change it again to the input for sat when you want to watch sat tv. Additionally, you have to change the receiver input to get the audio. So if the dvd player is connected via HDMI to tv input 1 and the audio from the dvd player is connected to the receiver, then you have to change the receiver input to dvd and also change the tv input to input 1 - not as convenient as letting the receiver do all of the switching but you can of course automate the procedure using macros on a universal remote control.
