TV questions

[Rossww]

I'm hoping to get some help on my home system that needs some replacements. At one point, I was really up the latest technology and used this site extensively to help pick out my home theater set-up..but I'm afraid that I'm a little lost right now. To sum it up, my eight year old Pioneer Elite Plasma crapped out over the weekend and I need to replace it. I have a two part question:

1) Can someone please recommend (or point me in the right direction) on a very good quality 60" replacement for a dark room. I was looking at a few Panasonic and Samsung's that were highly rated on Cnet. My Pioneer was great and I'm afraid I'm going to lose some picture quality in a newer model.

2) I run everything through a Pioneer Elite receiver (TV, DVD, Tivo) that is about five years old (the model escapes me). Any reason why I need to upgrade my receiver as well or should the new technology on the TV's be able to run through the receiver?

Thanks in advance

 

[BoredSysAdmin]

Unfortunately Pioneer stopped making plasma tvs - but some their know-how was passed on to Panasonic which used and improved on it.
It's hard to recommend specific model without knowing your budget, but I would be looking at Panasonic ST series like this one
Amazon.com : Panasonic VIERA TC-P60ST50 60-Inch 1080p 600Hz Full HD 3D Plasma TV : Electronics

There is very little difference from 2012 model - ST50 to 2013 model ST60. I have TC-P55ST35 (2013) and very happy with it

2) If you have 4-5 HDMI ports on your avr - I'd say keep it, if not I'm afraid you might have to look to upgrade. With anything analog will be dead soon , to have fully digital path I'm afraid is must.
My current AVR is Onkyo TX-SR805 which I bought in 2007 for $700 and have no plans to replace