Somebody Somewhere wrote:
I'm shopping for an LCD TV. It will be fed via my local cable system. I
do not currently subscribe to digital cable, just the normal analog
stuff on the normal "cable ready" frequencies. I understand that all
analog TV will be going away in a few years so obviously I should buy a
TV that already has built-in digital signal reception capability via
cable input. Some of the TVs on the market have different combinations
of NTSC tuners and/or ATSC tuners and/or QAM tuners. I know ATSC is for
off-the-antenna analog channels, but which built-in tuner(s) must my TV
have to receive the current analog cable channels, the upcoming digital
signals from local stations (presumably available via cable), and any
digital cable channels?

The fcc mandate digital mandate only applies to ota (over the air). What
your local cable company may or may not do varies.

QAM or cablecard tuners allow you to load a card into your tv and avoid
having to use a set-top box for decoding/decrypting digital tv over
cable. Its not a bad thing to have, don't have to mess with a second
remote or trying to hookup a set-top box.

ATSC tuners, are for digital ota broadcasts like you said. NTSC is the
video format we use. I would assume they are just talking about normal
analog ota reception.

The majority of cable companies that provide hd channels downsample the
hell out of the video and compress them. If you have a good signal, you
are really better off watching ota digital. Any lcd tv these days should
have support for HD/digital (atsc) for ota reception. The question is,
do you want a cablecard slot or stick with the set-top box.