I don't know about PAL stuff in the UK, but my Hauppauge WinTV card works really well for me. My card has on-board hardware MPEG encoding, so recording is great, even on the P-III 650 I'm using it with.
It's not HD, I haven't taken that plunge yet.
You didn't mention software, but I've used 2 apps that are both phenominal. Again, don't know about international support first hand.
Currently I'm using BeyondTV from Snapstream. Supports simultaneous use of however many tuner cards one might have installed. Nice web interface built in for access from anywhere, as well as local PC app. You can also schedule on the Snapstream site, which your PC will check in with periodically, so you can schedule a recording from anywhere, even if you don't know your own IP address. Software supports HD cards, too. Commercial softwar, you can d/l a trial, but continued use requires registration and the fee.
GBPVR is a freeware app available (lst I knew) for download at gbpvr.com (I think). I've used that, had it running for several months, in fact. Very good software, but still, it's a project, on sourceforge.net, and at times it behaves very much like a project, or work in progress. Nevertheless, it's a mature project, well supported by its owner and community, and also supports as many cards as you have, but requires hardware MPEG on the tuner, which not all of the cheap ones have. It also had a very nice web interface, and add-ons from many folks to dress it up and add features. Add-ons usually died with each app revision, until the add-on developers caught up, though.
