I agree with the above PC card recommendations, and do most of my recording that way, however if I remember right, the Coolsat 8100 does a good job recording high bitrate stuff. I stopped using my 8100 when I replaced it with the Azbox, so I don't use it much anymore, but I'm pretty sure that it recorded just about anything I threw at it.
I do most of my recording via my PCI cards (TH-1020a and TT3200), however the tuner on the 3200 isn't real sensitive, so I can't do some DVB-S2 transponders with it. When I used the 8100, it would tune a lot of transponders that the 3200 couldn't see, AND record from them.
The other issue though, is playback. If you're using a PCI or USB computer card, then you have the options of (1) playback on PC or (2) streaming to some playback device that can feed a TV. Playback on a PC works fine for SD MPEG2, but for HD or MPEG4, playback isn't quite so easy, unless you have a fast computer, and a program that doesn't give problems with MPEG4. My computers aren't quite fast enough to do HD well, and up until recent versions of VLC, I've had problems with MPEG4, although now I seem to be able to do SD and low bitrate HD MPEG4.
With a PCI or USB card though, if you want to view on a TV, you'll need something like a PopcornHour, which will do MPEG4 and SD 4.2.2 (I think). I had hopes of using the Azbox for HD 4.2.2, but except for low bitrate stuff, it won't work unfortunately.
But if you don't need 4.2.2, the Coolsat 8100 will do the HD MPEG4 stuff, as will the PCI card-->PopCornHour.
