With the caveat that I watch very little broadcast TV, when there was a network TV show that I really wanted to watch rather than pay them for access when I would probably be only using it for one show, I decided to get a TV dongle to test the waters.
That made it so I knew what channel were there. I am stll working on antennas, but what I did was this, I got a Silicon Dust IPTV tuner connect to it via my lan. Then you can put your broadcast TV tuner in an attic with perhaps one, perhaps several TV antennas.
I got an old used one on ebay for around $25
If your channels come from different directions, get a two tuner device and two directional antennas. Right now from the edge of the largest concentration of people in the US, I probably get around 45-50 channels. I can get the major networks. It doesnt include a VDR and that would make it much more complicated for your parents (or me) When I was a kid, getting old analog TV, much better signal strength, we probably got around the same number.., so I figure I am doing well. Before with no fancy antennas, I only got a very few channels. Its taken me much more work and knowledge and better antennas to do this, though.
You can find listings of the broadcast TV channels for any given location, see if the signals come from multiple directions, and if they are strong or weak. That info will determine what kind of setup will work the best.