Howard

If you plug a source (the stick) directly into your TV's HDMI port then obviously the sound will only come from the TV not from the surround system. You need to plug the stick into the surround system and then run an HDMI cable from the output of the Surround system to the HDMI input on the TV.

Looks nice, but that tool is really not needed. Just use a flat punch with some tape on it and a hammer, I do it all the time that way.

You may likely end up paying less for the three cars than you pay for just two newer cars with collision coverage as they will mandate he be rated on one of those. If you make him primary driver on the "junker" with no collision it could save you a lot of money. I did something similar in the early 1980's. My wife and I had two new cars and I bought a Plymouth Scamp '73 for $500 and had that as my drive to work car with minimal coverage rather than my new Volvo 740 GLE - the insurance on the three was cheaper than it had been on the two as the Volvo was now listed for low milage not to work. I also sold that car a few years later and got $200 more than I paid for it with another 20,000 miles on it.

Yup the cable was the issue. Also need a reboot after changing cable as it did not recognize a difference till a cold boot.

What do you mean by jailbreak, that only applies to Apple products I thought. You can load KODI on a Fire Stick without doing anything to it. I have it on one and just loaded it directly from a drive on my PC.

A BIG thank you to Tom that not only came up with a solution, but made me a new cable from the router to my computer and brought it to my house.

Wow, all we got was rain, my Huskies would have loved that.

The light on the Modem is Green. Guess I will have to check what else might be the issue. I am fairly sure it is not the router, but I do have a Switch hooked to the router that expands the number of wired ports and it is not super new so maybe it is only rated at 100. As far as the bandwidth I was always happy with the 50/25 but since they offered me faster for no money I took it. I went with the 50/25 mainly for the faster upload speed and number of mailboxes and max size of email attachments. Since I do a lot of photography and upload very large image files the upload speed had become an issue with their standard service. As far as streaming you are correct about 1080p only needing 5Mpbs but sometimes it spikes up to about 15. The issue really becomes how many things you have running on the network at once and I have quite a lot.

That is interesting. Just checked and it is in fact an Arris 822 so I wonder why they are saying I need a new one? The 94-97Mbps I was seeing was on a 2.4GHz connection. I am also seeing 99 on my wired ethernet to my PC but that may be a function of the physical cable I am thinking as it is CAT5. My network card is set to 100 full duplex as when I set it to 1,000 it just won't seem to work. I did a speed test today on my AppleTV which is on 5Ghs and it showed 199.45 down and 36.62 upload. What was strange is that when I did the same on my iPhone at the same location also on 5Ghz it only showed 165.72 and 36.75. Just checked the iPhone on 2.4Ghz and it only gets 33.38 / 36.70, while in 5Ghz it is now showing 70.39 / 23.24? These later tests were at a different location which is actually closer to the router. Wonder why that might be???

While true for many, Optimum does not charge longtime customers for modems, only newer customers. As I said they are dropping my price, upgrading the service and sending me a DOCSIS3 modem to replace my DOCSIS2 modem that I don't pay for.

They told me the limit is the modem that is why they are sending a new one. My WiFi will handle 300 with no issues.

I like mine, much less snappy than I thought it would be.

Optimum is still sub-optimum!!! So I searched online with my zipcode and I saw that Optimum had their 50/25 service for $44.90 and their 75/35 for $59.95. So I called and bitched to retention. They said I should have called earlier as they would have taken $20 off my phone bill had I not dropped the service. I had triple play and am in the process of dropping the cable TV. I explained I went with Ooma and only pay $4.08 so they stopped talking. He told me all those deals are for new customers only and they don't include installation or the modem fee. As a long time customer I do get my modem for free. I told him I still was not happy that new customers get a better deal. He said he would see what he could do and put me on hold. While he could only cut my price by $5 he did change my service from 50/25 to 200/35 but said my modem would not support it so he would be sending me a new one in the mail and I just need to send the old one back. That price is for a year. Don't know what else he had to say as the phone went out. I started thinking to myself maybe this Ooma is crap as I never had that issue with my Optimum phone, but then I looked and saw I had lost my internet connection. The idiot who knew we were on VoiP reprovisioned my line while we were talking which is why connection was lost. I went to speedtest.net two minutes later when it came back online and see with this modem I am now getting 94/37 versus the 50/25 I had a few minutes ago. Guess the modem is limiting that and it will go up when the new one comes.

Well I got it from Costco not BB, but Costco will let you return it for a full refund up to 90 days with no restocking fee or any questions asked.

It is an UN55KU6290F. They don't have it online, only in the store. I got it from the one in Wharton and they only had 6 of them last Friday. I am assuming when those are gone they are gone and they will probably be bringing in a newer model - for more money. I didn't need the newest or best and thought this was a great value for a bedroom.

Interesting, I'll check it out. The issue I have had were on SALTS (Stream All The Sources) which I have found has a boat load of content. As an aside, I have KODI on a first Gen Amazon Fire Stick, what steps would I have to take to convert it to Exodus - it's been awhile since I've messed with this.

Don't know what you mean regarding Exodus and Specto, those are just builds has nothing to do with some of the sources and repos that get added in. The source of the streams is the issue not the actual apps.

The build of KODI is not the issue, it is the streaming sources. Sometimes I am presented with 100 links for a given show and have to manually try them one by one to find one that is actually rocking at the moment. It is hardly a plug and play solution but works for those that don't mind the hassles.

FIreTV is much better than the Firestick as others have said. Kodi is good, some of the content may be considered illegal. The biggest issue with KODI is reliability and things can work today and not tomorrow. It is also not for someone that is not fairly technical and will to play around to find what they want, it is not like turning on the Cable box and going to say channel 7 and having it pop on. For that you really have to pay for some of the streaming services but they are not that expensive. If you drop cable TV you can get SlingTV for $20 or $25 a month, DirectTV NOW has packages that are $35 a month and both of these are more plug and play and reliable. Moving up to PS View for $40 a month you get about 40 stations including all the NY Networks and get to DVR all the stuff. There are a lot of options out there. A great resource is Cord cutting technical support group on Facebook. Lots of people that can give you detailed answers on just about any of this stuff. Check out my other thread here too.

Unbox it I guess, or take a sawsall to the side of the car

Bought a Glock G43 on the cheap to shoot BUG division in IDPA.

Set up the Samsung a little bit ago and the picture is amazing, sound is not half bad either. The SmartTV stuff on it is garbage, but they all are and I did not expect anything from it. I am using a Roku streaming stick as the input for it right now. That is a 1080P device but the TV automatically upconverts it to 4K. Not really as an issue as there is very little TV content that is in higher resolution. This 55" UHD 4K TV was only $489 at Costco. Factor in the 2% I get back on my Executive Club membership and additional 2% off for using my Costco Citi Visa card plus that they double and redouble the warranty to 4 years when using the two cards it was a great buy.

Went with the Samsung, will try it out tomorrow.

They must not like you. I have State Farm and have never paid a surcharge, but never had more than two points at a time.

That is why I mentioned what I did. Also get there early. You will find lots of lawyers sitting there with clients or going in to speak with the Prosecutor. Most of them will be very happy to take you as a client on the spot - this is not rocket science for them and they need zero prep time. So, you could plead with the prosecutor on your own and if you don't like what he offers then retain one of the lawyers that is already there. You might even get a better rate from them as this is incremental business they had not planned on and they are already there.