The condo I’m renting, which IIRC was built within the past five or six years, has an alcove above the fireplace which is large enough to hold a standard (non-flat screen) TV. In the back of the alcove is an electrical outlet and a cable jack. The fireplace is a gas fireplace which directs all the heat into the room and has no chimney, so I don’t think heat would be an issue. There’s also another cable jack in the wall in the living room, which is the one I use because I agree that putting the TV over the fireplace would put it up too high.
I checked the manual for my plasma last night, and it says the following:
Make sure there’s no smoke/soot in the place you want to mount it.
Build a roaring fire, put a thermometer against the spot you’ll be mounting the display. Try a few different spots. If the temp doesn’t exceed 104 F, you’re good to go.
However, I’m going to join to the “above the fireplace is too high” crowd. The bottom of mine is 2.5 ft above the floor, and it’s pretty much perfect.
The old standard for TV placement used to be to have the center of the screen be at eye-level when sitting. I still go by that to this day.
I don’t know where people got the idea that just because you could mount them to a wall that you should mount them so high??
But the picture IMHO is better. The colours are brighter, the blacks are deeper, and you don’t get backlight banding.