The digital over the air signal surely isn't perfect. Faltering reception for me does about two things.
1. Picture goes along and then freezes for a half second before starting again, along with audio dropout
2. Pixelating appearance of the digital signal (usu lasts only few seconds with no drop in audio)

Neither of these bother me unless the audio is stopping and starting frequently. Then it's no use watching. I get that mostly with NBC, sometimes ABC. Whatever channels are coming in on the VHF rabbit ear portion can be the most difficult to tune. The loop (UHF) channels usually do better.

If I bought again, I would probably look for a set that had a built in amplifier for best reception. Then all you need is the cheapest rabbit ears for great reception. A friend has that setup. My HDTV didn't have built in amplification. I suspect those small non HDTV LCD sets will get poor reception due to the antennas as Evan has stated.