After having worked with 4 different ATSC tuners I felt embiggened - "Quoting the Simpsons" to compile a minimum requirement checklist of usefull functions that I feel are needed in any run of the mill ATSC tuner.

1. As good a signal detector/sensitivity front end circuit as possible.
2. A "-" or "." on the keypad to easily select subchannels/multicast channels.
3. Faster up/down channel selection - most models I have used are slower at changing channels that a Turtle on Crutches. Can someone tell me how ATSC tuners compare to Sat channel switching ?
4. Ability to add/delete subchannels - don't laugh I can not delete subchannels with the Samsung SIR T451. Once you delete subchannel -3 and than you go back and select -1 it automatically puts all the subchannels including -3 back in.
5. Favorite channel option.
6. Faster building of the "Guide" - Samsung Mini guide is a nice addtion as it is pretty instantaneous.
7. Storage of the "guide" after it is built - My Pioneer tuner does not save it , as soon as you leave the guide it is deleted and you have to build the guide all over again.
8. Put a fixed picture in the selected channel viewing area before the start of building the "guide". I realise the tuner can't simultaneously have a live feed but a fixed still image would be nice.
9.Make the guide smart enough to not add channels to the guide that you have already deleted from your viewing list. Don't laugh the Pioneer adds Pax back in everytime I build the guide even if I have deleted it from channel look up.
10. Some kind of display that will tell you the channel of the station as well as the actual channel that it is broadcast on.
11. A signal Strength indicator that is not buried down 5 menus.
13. The ability to change channels while signal strength is being displayed.
14. Ability to append channels to "Search for available Channels" when you swap antenna inputs or rotate existing antenna.
15. The ability to quickly scroll jump past channels that are presently not sending a video feed. - Every tuner I have used has hanged on a secondary multicast channel.
16. Stretch feature to work for all aspect ratios. If a station is broadcasting in HD with side bars I can not stretch the image to get rid of the sidebars that can cause burn in.
17. In addition to the signal strength meter some kind of meter that counts the number of Ghost/reflection images. - I can have a signal strength indication of 9 out of ten but if there are reflections the show I am watching will still cut out from time to time.
18. Software upgradeable.






Extras:
1. Two built in ATSC tuners.
2. 1080P output in a STB.
3. Auto Scroll through channels.
4. I don't mind the video feed freezing when a low signal condition exists but I wish the audio would not go away also.
5. Built in application that will view the "Logo" on the screen and replace it with adjancent pixels in the video feed- to help fight burn in