And what DVB cards that support HD and are supported by current kernel drivers are in favorites now?
I have a few VDR boxes and all of them now are using Nvidia cards and vdpau. I output the audio/video to my nice fancy tv with DVI->HDMI cables. It works great. I'm not sure what you're really asking though when you say what setup is ideal. That completely depends on _your_ needs & wants but the only people I know with 'juddery' playback only experience it because the video card they have doesn't really have enough horsepower for the higher end hd content. Which could be solved by simply buying a different inexpensive video card.