Buy LED, LCD or Plasma

I'm going to put TV over fireplace as well when current (since 2000) DLP TV dies. I don't care much for plasma. It looks worse (losing contrast) in bright light than LCD, has horrible reflections, is prone to etching a pattern (sidebars) effect and wastes a lot of power. In addition it doesn't die gracefully by loosing contrast but by burst of cells that make dark stains.

Get largest LED LCD. Electroluminescent backlight have tendency to vacuum dirt (high voltage) that eventualy lowers screen brightness by lowering/briging high voltage (case of my IMB laptop). LED backlight should last almost forever.

I don't quite understand distance argument. 60" should be good for 20 feet or more. As for brands - I have good experience with Samsung (two TVs, two monitors) but heard of bad experience with Toshiba (friend, sister-in-law). Sony is overpriced and Panasonic is pretty good (bought one for my daughter).

The only concern I have about fireplace is that TV will be higher than the speakers (TV sound coming from the bottom) but it is very minor complain. Wall above fireplace is, IMHO, the best place for TV.

I don't quite understand distance argument. 60" should be good for 20 feet or more.

You can google "tv viewing distance" to find lots of info but here is one from Crutchfields site

http://www.crutchfield.com/S-IevFNuLGC81/Learn/learningcenter/home/TV_placement.html

Screen Viewing distance range
26"______ 3.25-5.5 feet
32"______ 4.0-6.66 feet
37" ______ 4.63-7.71 feet
40" ______ 5.0-8.33 feet
46" ______ 5.75-9.5 feet
52" ______ 6.5-10.8 feet
58" ______ 7.25-12 feet
65" ______ 8.13-13.5 feet
70" ______ 8.75-14.75 feet

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Plasma if you don't have any bright light shining on it,LCD if you do.The LED's are controversial about color accuracy. I've read some only use LED's for part of the back lighting. There are two types of LED's.The newest LED's may be better, but I'm not sold on them yet.This link helps somewhat on the different LED's.[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/LED-backlit_LCD_television]

My sincere thanks for all the well thought responses. My five year old Sony Grand Wega has a failing optical block, lots of blue showing at right and bottom with all content. Sony is no help even though countless forums are filled with customer complaints on this issue.

Repair could easily run $1100.00, so that's not going to happen and right now I can't reward Sony with another TV purchase. The Grand Wega has always been rolled up against the left wall for music and pulled between the speakers for movies.

Mounting above the fireplace could be a reasonable resolution to all problems and may even help sound since the TV wont be next to my left speaker.

Several of you made points I had concerns for and some I had not even considered. The viewing distance close and far is 12' and 17'. I've looked at several brands at stores, fortunately most were using DTV or Blue Ray so I had good HD quality signal.

So far I'm impressed with Panasonic V10 Plasma 58" and the Samsung LCD Un55B8500 55". Both are excellent but very different as many here have posted.

SAMSUNG LED