suzib

Funny how different people have different experiences with certain brands -- Toshiba is my bogey brand. LG has always been pretty good to me and my current LG TV has been going for years with no problems.

I'm not opposed to Panasonic, but the prices for many of the models I've looked at seem quite high versus the competition, although not as high as Samsung, which seems really overpriced in Thailand. Do you have UBC hooked up to your Panny, ignis? If so how do you find it looks? I hear some models/brands are really bad for standard def and others play it pretty good.

How about you jc, does your LG look alright with UBC?

I doubt you will see the difference on the UBC signals

Probably not. At the same time, some models display standard definition better than others, so I guess that will be important with the quality of UBC.

Video off the internet often does not reach 720

Often it does, and I want to be able to watch it.

You will find the new TV has a PC socket, so you can feed the vga signal direct from the PC

Do most have this, as I don't see it really listed as I feature when I look up specs online?

Watch out, many of the plasmas are only 720...... Even the 50" LG Plasma is also twice as heavy as the LCD (37kg vs 20-25kg), so make sure the table where you plan to put it is strong

Thanks, I was aware of that. Not really sure if on a plasma the difference between 720 and 1080 would really be that noticeable -- although 50 is pushing the limits from what I've read.

Weight not really a concern for me at all. The CRT TV I have now is pretty heavy.

With the prices having come down so much in recent months, I'm considering buying an LCD or plasma TV. But with the model numbers in Thailand different than those in the US or UK, I'm having a hard time finding reviews to help me sort through the mountain of information.

I thought maybe someone here with experience in Thailand could help me wade through this.

This is what I want to be able to do:

Watch sports on UBC (I read here that some of these brands handle UBC better than others. Also I know plasmas can be better for sport than LCD due to blur.)

Play video games (I know LCD was better than plasma in the past for this do to the threat of image burn, but that newer plasmas don't have this problem as much.)

Watch HD movies in at least 720p that are downloaded from Internet (will these play at this quality if hooked up through my cheap DVD player and played on a thumb drive -- somehow I doubt that -- or do I need a USB on the TV itself? Or if I go for one of the media centers I saw talked about on here, do I even need to bother with getting a TV that plays USB video?)

Possibly hook up to my laptop. (This isn't the most important because if I get a media center I really won't need to do this, and my laptop is old and doesn't have HDMI port. But is it worth getting a TV with S-Video to do this, or is the image quality on that not worth it?)

I'd like to get at least 42'' (but no bigger than 50 as my place isn't that big) and my budget is no more than 40k baht, though I'd like to pay less if possible.

I was looking at the LG 50PQ30R plasma which is currently on sale at Powerbuy for 33,990. It seems like a great price but was wondering if anyone had any experience with it here. Can get the same series in 42'' for 24,900.

Would be open to any brand/model suggestions from anyone who has experince with these things. And apologies for the long post.

Many thanks,

suzib

Sorry to resurrect an old thread, but I have a US social security question and this covers it pretty well.

I work for a US company here in Bangkok. They withhold FICA from my pay every month. This is based on my gross salary, of course. Then they take out Thai income tax, also based on my gross salary, and deposit the remainder in my Thai bank account.

My question is whether they should be taking the Thai tax out of my total salary, or out of my net salary after FICA is deducted. On the one hand it seems like since the net is all that ever makes it in to Thailand this is what I should be taxed on. Plus it seems like double taxation to be paying FICA and Thai income tax on the gross salary.

On the other hand, I can see where an argument could be made that I earn the gross salary in Thailand and the whole thing should be subject to thai income tax.

Does anyone know whether the amount of my salary that goes to FICA should be exempt from thai income tax or not?