Q: How is reception in distant or "fringe" areas? Will I get a fuzzy picture?
A: When it comes to digital television, it's an "all or nothing at all" proposition. Once the signal is acquired, a steady stream of data assures you'll get a perfect picture and great audio. If that bit stream is interrupted, however, there will be nothing - just a blank screen. In areas with lots of buildings or obstacles, multi-path distortion can cause a "cliff effect" to kick in. The fix is to use a higher-gain antenna assuming the multi-path can be tamed. Work is being done to determine the optimal designs for improving error correction in set-top receivers.
As far as distance is concerned, getting reliable UHF DTV reception beyond the curvature of the earth (approximately 70 miles) is difficult. Terrain has a major impact on reception. Going over water is the best-case-scenario since water is generally flat and has positive impacts on temperature for sending the signal along. That being said, beyond 70 miles, unless you can get direct line-of-sight to the transmitters, obstacles which impact reception negatively are inevitable.