I would like to pick one of these up in the next few days but i really do not understand this hardware. I do want to go HD instead of analog so i am willing to spent a couple hundred dollars to get the best. Could you guys point me in the right direction.

Any particular reason why you want it external? If you mainly use a laptop like me, I already understand. If you do have a desktop, though, you may want to just go internal. As far as an internal, I'd say a Black Magic Intensity Pro. http://www.blackmagic-design.com/products/intensity/models/ The Shuttle (external) is also shown, but I don't have any feedback on that, since I don't know anyone who uses one.

Yeah. Unless you have to it's best to grab an internal capture card. If you do go external with that BMI Shuttle you will need USB 3.0 to utilize it.

Black Magic Intensity, but if you can somehow manage an internal....I love my Aver one which records with HDMI through a splitter.