Don't know why you'd think I think you have anything against plasma?
Perhaps a similar reason you said this?
Seriously, I'm quite perturbed as to how people go on about plasma buzz. Admittedly, I haven't heard any plasmas at altitude, so perhaps I am in the wrong here. But out of all plasma buyers in recent months, maybe 5% have complained about buzz? I can only put this down to either a bad set (which will get swapped as in Grim's case and I think randomwelsh), or excessive pedantry. Again, seriously, based on my own plasma's buzz, I cannot understand how it could be so much worse at altitude that one could hear it from viewing distance with the sound off. Sorry for going a bit off topic, but any discussion to help me get my head around this would be appreciated.
The PS50C550 is a fantastic TV, the only downfall is slight jaggering in panning shots. So if you watch a lot of, say, nature documentaries (mainly panning shots), then the PS50C550 isn't for you. For all other applications it is 100%. I would probably still recommend the PS50C450 even if you have a higher budget, based on the fact that the C4xx series are the tried, tested, trusted plasma's with no shortcomings to my knowledge.
Burn-in will not be a problem unless you work on the PC with the plasma excessively. You will most likely get image retention (seems "worse" on the 50"ers than 42"ers?) after 1.5 hours+ of displaying high contrast images/logo's etc.. Really though, IR shouldn't concern you as it's gone within seconds of changing channels/sources. Also, IR is more likely when plasma is in a brighter room where one would have to run it at increased brightness. In my case I've never had one bit of IR, probably due to me being able to run it at lower brightness because the room it's in isn't too bright in the day.
Oh, and according to Samsung, break-in period is a thing of the past. I would still suggest you run at half brightness for the first ±100 hours though.
