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Since I've done antenna design in my career, I'll chime in here.
Skip is pretty close to the solution.
First, antennas; you need to look at the "gain" factor. A lot of spiffy looking antennas sell looks and not performance. Gains on the order of 10 dB on the lower channels (2-13) is average and 20-25 db on the UHF channels are probably all you will find. The higher gain factor means the antennas beamwidth is narrow and that's where a antenna rotator may be needed. Now, the "F" factor. All TV stations now have switched to digital. The old designs for analog antennas are limited by the same physics, however digital modulation is much narrower in beamwidth thus exacerbating the directional issue. Bottom line, look at the transmitter locations and if they are more than 20° difference invest into a rotor.
Amplifiers are often useless. If you live on the fringe, they just amplify noise. Having said that, digital is impervious to noise so there may be some trade off but I would be pessimistic but don't let this prevent you from trying one. Look for the BER (Bit Error Rate) factor and select one with the highest number.
Splitters will specify losses in dB usually with factors of 3, 7.5. That number aggregates with the number of splitters you use so if you start splitting splitters it would be best to add amplification.
Also, look at the coaxial cable. New cable is normally stamped "RG6" with a phrase "Swept to 1 GHz " some number like that. That is very important in terms of digital reception.
Hope this helps. One reason I dropped DTV is that locals were not included. Plus I get a great package from Comcast for my TV/Phone/INet.
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