After over a half-decade installing antennas, we have worked with nearly every make and model of television manufactured in the last 20yrs or so. As such, we’ve become quite familiar with the quirks and features of nearly every TV on the market. We thought it would be helpful to summarize our knowledge here. The following is a list of TV brands, listed from best to worst in terms of over-the-air reception features:
LG
Pros:
+Fast channel scanning
+Signal meter: Displays SNR in percent
+Duplicate subchannels: Retains subchannel numbers, displays in RF order
+Rotator compatibility: Allows for manual channel addition
+Grid-style TV guide
+ATSC 3 Tuning: Works without major issues
Cons:
-Signal meter: Ideally, it would display SNR in dB
Verdict: Can’t go wrong with an LG, under any circumstances. Menus, software, picture quality are also excellent.
Samsung
Pros:
+Fast channel scanning
+Signal meter: Displays SNR in dB
+Duplicate subchannels: Retains subchannel numbers, displays in RF order
+Grid-style TV guide
+ATSC 3 Tuning: Works without major issues
Cons:
-Rotator compatibility: No manual channel addition
Verdict: Also can’t go wrong with a Samsung set. In our opinion, the most intuitive menus, stable software and excellent picture quality. The lack of manual channel addition would be an inconvenience for rotator users.
Sony:
Pros:
+Signal meter: Displays SNR in dB
+Duplicate subchannels: Retains subchannel numbers, displays in RF order
+Rotator compatibility: Allows for Add-on scan.
+Grid-style TV guide
Cons:
-ATSC 3 Tuning: As of writing, ATSC 3 channels time out with an error message.
Verdict: Overall good OTA features, software and picture quality. However, the finicky ATSC 3 tuner may be a major drawback to some. We also find the menus to be rather convoluted.
Roku TV:
Pros:
+Fast channel scanning
+Signal meter: Displays SNR via a 5 bar graph
+Grid-style TV guide
Cons:
-Duplicate subchannels: Displays duplicate subchannels by their RF channel designation
-Rotator compatibility: No manual channel addition
Verdict: Overall good OTA features software and picture quality. The lack of manual channel addition would be an inconvenience for rotator users. The issue with duplicate subchannel designation is only an issue in select locations.
Insignia:
Pros:
Fire TV:
Pros:
+Fast channel scanning
+Grid-style TV guide
Cons:
-Buggy software: Quite often, we find that Over-the-Air channels won’t actually appear in the channel lineup after running a channel scan. Sometimes, this issue is not even resolved after manually restarting the TV. We also find that TV channels will sit there and “buffer”, sometimes indefinitely, after the channel is selected – sometimes fixed by restarting the TV’s software.
Verdict: We highly recommend you stay away from Fire TVs! The software issues we described above have plagued sets for years – and we always make sure a set is running the latest firmware! The now-discontinued Fire TV Recast OTA DVR system was an equally disastrous dumpster fire of software issues.