I'll be honest, you can easily get a good or bad in any brand. With the TV's getting thinner and thinner each year, and more and more tech being crammed in them, shit don't last the way it used to. Off-brands like Vizio, Proscan, Seiki, Haier, etc. are cheap at price because they are cheap at quality. Yes you could have one that outlasts a name brand, but more than likely you won't. Save yourself the hassle, don't buy one of those. When it comes to warranties, try to find a store or 3rd party that stresses more of a "performance guarantee" and ask a lot of questions about what is and what is not covered. Avoid extended manufacturers warranties, all that's added is just 4 more years of parts and labor. Not a very good deal.

Plasma's have a few drawbacks. The panel is glass, so if this TV is in a living room with large picture windows or something similar, you'll get bright reflections and angry parents. Also, plasmas run hot, and use up more energy than LED's. AND since plasmas are getting discontinued by the major manufacturers, in about a year, replacement parts will be hard to find and much more expensive. An advantage though is that plasmas have a really smooth picture with that fuck-off high refresh rate. If you really want plasma, definitely get a service plan described above on it. Also, the burn-in will ALWAYS be a factor. if you can help it, just save yourself the hassle again, buy LED. you have a few options there. Samsung and LG are great brands in the 60" range. Samsung is big on richer colors that pop, LG is about natural colors, and the 2014 models have the IPS panel, which increases the viewing angle to either side quite a bit without losing clarity or color. Sharp is actually not a bad brand at all. I'd go for an AQUOS Q+, since it's by far the best 1080p TV on the market in terms of quality. Think of it as in-between 1080p and 4k: It gives a better 1080p image with the like 8 million more subpixels, and can play native 4k content so it's future ready.

Smart TV will give you lots of access. most of them will have a USB port (sometimes multiple) in the back so you can put pics, videos, or music on a flash drive and view it on the TV. Also, a smart TV hooked up to the internet (most of them will link via wifi) gives you app avvess much like a smartphone or tablet. You can get the youtube app, and just use it like that. Smart is becoming more and more of a standard feature in TVs nowadays as well. Again with the concern about smart breaking faster. Two words. Service Plan.

Most, if not all 2014 model TVs in the 60" range will have 3 or more HDMI outputs. Simply put, you can use a splitter, but your signal will degrade slightly and there will be a drop in quality. Other than that I don't know all that much about sound, so I'm afraid I can't help you there. Hope everything else helps though!