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The difference is the DVR in question. Aero's DVR is in the cloud and Dish's is in the home of the subscriber. It seems the Supreme Court saw a big enough difference in Aero's distribution as to be infringing while Dish's distribution has been covered for decades by fair use rules. Dish's DVR is no different than a VHS or VCR system from a legal standpoint. In fact I can get a modern DVR for Over The Air (ATSC) recording from several different companies. In fact I just found this article discussing Aero alternatives and it mentions all three of the devices I just linked to. The only problem for a select few is that Aero had chosen a choice location for its array of antenna and some people can't get a good signal due to metal walls or distance from towers.

The other prominent build-able design is called a Yagi.

It's actually a "Yagi/Corner-Reflector".

It consists of connected bow-ties, rather than zig-zag elements.

"Bowtie" refers to a specific type of antenna, a "multi-bay" unit... an antenna that is most definitely NOT a yagi. In fact a multi-bay bowtie antenna resembles a Grey-Hovermann much more than a Yagi/Corner-Reflector.

Yagi/Corner-Reflector: http://www.solidsignal.com/prod_display.asp?PROD=MXU59
Multi-bay/Bowtie: http://www.solidsignal.com/prod_display.asp?PROD=ANC4228

The Yagi design is nice, because its gain is roughly even across UHF.

That's completely wrong. Yagis have extremely good gain at high frequencies (most of which aren't being used for TV anymore), and almost always very poor gain at lower frequencies. The idea of getting ANY VHF frequencies with a yagi is laughable.

See: http://www.hdtvprimer.com/ANTENNAS/comparing.html

OTA digital is in the same spectrum as analogue TV. Difference is, no one is using VHF any more and licenses for the high UHF channels are not being issued (63-69, I believe), which frees them up for the 700MHz auction

http://www.hdtvprimer.com/

I'm wondering what will become of the VHF spectrum (2-13).

From what I've read, the only solution is to erect an antenna taller than the nearby trees -- and that's still no guarantee.

I've tried powered, directional antennas and mapped out the best orientation for each signal. I've tried outside antennas in different places. Nothing has helped.

According to http://www.hdtvprimer.com/ISSUES/hints.html, that isn't entirely true. The analog signal doesn't necessarily give you any indication as to how well you receive the digital signal.:

Picture quality

The image quality is not affected at all by a low to moderate level of noise in the signal. This is true for both satellite and OTA DTV. Yet some people can't resist wondering "could I improve the image by improving the signal strength?" The answer is NO!

When the signal becomes too weak, you will see "macro-block errors" (parts of the screen that are shifted or obviously wrong), sound dropouts lasting a few seconds, or image freezes lasting a few seconds. All of these errors are crude, unsubtle errors. If these are not present, your image is perfect.

If your image is perfect, there is still one reason you might want to improve the signal: It would make dropouts less likely in bad conditions, such as heavy rain. Rain can affect DBS and UHF reception, but not VHF. In some places, wind can affect UHF.

(If you get sound dropouts but not image dropouts, or visa versa, then the fault is not a reception problem. Usually the station is at fault, but occasionally it is the STB.)

If you would like to figure out what DT signals are available in your area, a good starting point is AntennaWeb. You can enter your street address and it will return a list of OTA signals you should be able to receive (analog and DT).

If I understand correctly, 1080p (or progressive) displays all scan lines with one pass at 30hz and 1080i (interlaced) displays even or odd scan lines with one pass at 60hz (giving an effective 30 hz). According to the HDTV Primer, it doesn't sound like 1080p gives you THAT much better performance than 1080i except to reduce flicker (I don't notice it in my new HDTV display that only goes to 1080i).

From the HDTV Primer:

What is 1080p?
The terms 480i, 480p, 720p, and 1080i were never formally defined. Yet they are universally understood. But 1080p is anything but unambiguous. There are at least three conflicting, very different meanings currently in common usage:

1. 1080 progressive at 30 frames per second is one of the 18 formats. This 1080p is (or could be) in use every day. The same applies to 1080p24.
2. If 1080p is to 1080i what 480p is to 480i then 1080p is 60 frames per second. Monitors that can do this are rare. There are no 1080p60 sources.
3. When the maker of a digital display finds a way to improve upon 1080i he will usually say his display does 1080p. The improvement is usually some way to reduce flicker.

You should refrain from using the term 1080p when referring to the receiver or the monitor interface since this usage is ambiguous. Instead use 1080p30, etc.

Usually 1080p just means flicker reduction. Some time in the future motion adaptive processing will likely become available. In this process a computer in the receiver turns a 30 frames/sec image into a true 60 frames/sec image (1080p60). The motion vectors (described below) are used for creating the missing frames. This is probably the best hope for eliminating the jumpiness that currently plagues 1080i. Monitors will need a 1080p60 interface format, but some monitors will benefit from 1080p48 or 1080p72. Rather than introducing 3 new monitor interface formats, the receivers will probably be integrated with the monitors, eliminating the monitor interface.

There is a common misconception that there are only 2 HDTV formats (1080i and 720p) there are in fact 6 in the ATSC standard that vary by resolution and framerate:

720p24, 720p30, 720p60, 1080p24, 1080p30, 1080i60.

It is most likely that HD movies will be released in 1080p24, since the source material is 24fps (film). Encoding it at 60fps would be a waste of bandwidth.

See: http://www.hdtvprimer.com/ISSUES/what_is_ATSC.html

I've heard good things about the "Silver Sensor" antenna, marketed by Zenith in the US.

http://www.hdtvprimer.com/ANTENNAS/silver.html

Unless the antenna has an actual amplifier on it, it does not increase the power output of the transmitter. It simply alters the radiation pattern, instead of spreading the signal out in a sphere, it concentrates it into something closer to a cone.
For more information see (for example) this site or any HAM radio site.