I want to expand my hardware base from using a dreambox to using a dvb card because the dreambox is too expensive for hd and I have not seen anything that is worth investing in as far as fta is concerned.
which units are good for hdtv and north american tv?
thank u this is my first post here and I am sure it will not be my last

Well, we're located in europe, so we don't get your birds, to help directly.

Regarding HD, there are two completely different ways of transmission, DVB-S (like all the SD stuff, too) and DVB-S2.
DVB-S2 requires special tuners / demodulators, means, suitable DVB cards.

Then, HD may use standard MPEG2 compression, then requiring adequate codecs and quite high CPU power. But it may also use h.264 uinstead, special codec required, plus enormous CPU.

In Europe, MPEG2 based DVB-S HD is almost dead meanwhile, but over there in NA, I simply don't know..

Best way to go for NA related issues is to (register and) read at dvbn(dot)happysat(dot)org

thank u for your help