I have a wood burning fireplace and asked my home theatre specialist friend his opinion. He asked "How how does it get above your mantel?"... "do the candles on you mantel melt?" - I guess it doesn't get THAT hot!

Hi, I just had one put above my fireplace. I had the electricians run all of the wires down inside the wall and under the floor to a corner cabinet. Is this what you were thinking of?

Here is a link that might be useful: {{gwi:1519018}}

It's usually okay to mount the plasma above a fireplace if there is a mantel shelf to catch the heat. There is plenty of room between the drywall and the metal flue in which to run wires. If you recess the plasma into a cabinet you need to make sure that it is vented. If you can't arrange it so you get natural flow (holes below and holes above), they make small fans for this purpose that will draw in air and blow it out the top.

If you buy a plasma that has a remote media center (I know that Pioneer's do) then it could save you lots of $$ in cables depending where you mount your equipment in relation to the plasma display.

My Pioneer has a seperate control box and only runs two wires to the actual display. The TV came with 10' of cable to this box which was plenty of cord for me. If you start buying longer HDMI, DVI, or component cords it gets expensive.

good luck