Samsung Smart TV no longer defaults to HDMI input.

Something other than a smart TV for streaming may be more of a technical hurdle for some than for others.

Certain members of certain families have trouble taking full advantage of certain systems even when they are set up for ease of use and are working perfectly.

Toss in strange (and inconsistent) issues like I'm having and certain members of certain families will just go read a book. Heck, this thing is confusing *me* but I can at least - eventually - get it to do what I want it to do as long as I juggle two remotes and press the right buttons in the right sequence while facing north, holding a dehydrated bullfrog's foot and chanting Babylonian incantations.

If certain members of certain families get told that they now need to use a laptop to watch TV, things will not go well for certain *other* members of certain families, if you get my drift.

Hey, thanks. Now I can use one remote only. Mea culpa. The TV's menu has a lot of options and I hadn't gone through them.

I solved the problem enough to not need a new TV.

In an earlier post I mentioned the secret Service Menu. In that OS level settings menu, you can supposedly select Hotel Mode and then lock the input to a specific port. I had

1 - You need a specific Samsung remote in order to get into that menu. The remote that came with my TV was missing one of the buttons required for the key sequence to get into the Service Menu. $12 on Amazon for the proper remote resolved that issue.

However, I did find a Factory Reset option within the Service menu. I had already done a Factory Reset through the standard Settings menu that all users can access, but it didn't really do much. OK, so if I brick the TV by using the Service Menu factory reset, so be it. I was resigned to buying a new TV anyway.

Well, low and behold, that Factory Reset actually did a complete reset, all the way back to having to choose a language and then hearing the gentle female voice say "Hi! Let's set up your TV."

Once I went through all the steps, the TV began to turn on to the last used source. That works for me. Even if turns back on in TV+ mode (ethernet) it is now fully in TV+ mode, not stuck somewhere in limbo between TV+ and the cable box. Switching between sources works smoothly and all of the "no sound" problems are gone.

Let's hope it lasts. I'm convinced that the power outage we had a couple of weeks ago screwed something up.

A smart tv is much easier to use than to have your laptop connected to the tv at all times

Why not if that is all the PC is for, and it doesn't have to be a laptop, any W/7 or above PC works, how is it easier? Get a wireless work station (mouse and keyboard) and run it from your Lazboy. The mouse does pretty much everything. You find there are lots of things you can do easier from a PC than a Smart TV, assuming it is that smart in the first place. Browsing the web on a 60" is way better than that little monitor on your desk to start with. You can play anything on your network, not just what the smart TV understands.

You still have a tiny monitor? I've had 27" for about 7 years now. I couldn't imagine using the TV screen for computer work.

You can play anything on your network, not

Typical Smart TV doesn't have ability to play any Mpegs, Avi, etc, ie the common video standards?

You will find the photo viewer is primitive compared to something like IRFANVIEW and the only way to get to movies is to load them into your Windows Library if they are on your network. Browsing on a big screen is pretty cumbersome if you compare that one letter at a time selection screen using a remote to a real keyboard. Same for searching in Prime or Netflix. The music player is really bad if you are doing anything put playing everything you have with little control. I have had a PC connected to my TVs for well over 20 years so maybe it is just what you get used to. My "DVD player" was a 488mz P-II PC running W/98 for years. It really got started as an MP3 player around 1998, just using the TV as the monitor and using my sound system. I still use that player DOS based MPXPLAY. It is the best MP3 player I have ever seen. It runs fine in DOSBOX on 64 bit Windows.

If all you are trying to do is avoid the "one letter at a time" PITA, you don't need a PC. I know that you are talking about a lot more than that, so I'm just tossing this out as a simple means to address that particular issue.

Wireless keyboards for Smart TV's, even ones with touchpads, are pretty cheap these days. I use one for my Samsung. Not this one, but similar.

We have dual 24" monitors at work and I had a single 24" at home.

As soon as we started working remotely, I bought a second 24" monitor to replicate my work environment.

When I log in remotely (via Citrix) I'm actually logged into my desktop at work which in turn connects me to the corporate network. There's really no difference (other than an extra login step) between working from home or working in the office. It's like I'm sitting in front of my work PC.

Well, there is another difference. I'm much closer to the coffee maker at home. ;-)

Not only that, but voice control has also come a long way in recent years. My wife uses her voice to control her phone, which in turn is screencasted to the TV. I'm more old school, I use voice control with my Roku devices, which of course are connected to the TVs.

I have one not-so-smart Samsung TV that uses a Firestick. The FS remote allows for voice control.

They recently upgraded the OS on the stick and everything appears to be much more efficient now. Voice commands work great. "Open How it's Made on Discovery Plus"

Now the FS Home page more closely resembles the standard Samsung Smart TV "source" page used for choosing Netflix, Discovery+, Prime Video, etc. It makes for an easier transition when going back and forth between the Smart TV's and the not-so-smart one.

I was doing that in 1990 with a piece of software called FARLINK, that ran on my desk at work, coax connected to the VM system and modem connected to my machine at home. As far as IBM knew I was sitting at my desk.

Try doing that today. My office desktop is so locked down that we can't even use a USB drive or any external device. Even a dedicated printer would require God-level approval. Scanners? Fugget about it!

When I remote in, it's almost like "terminal access". e.g. the clipboard on my home PC doesn't talk to the clipboard on my work PC - no copy/paste between environments. No swapping files, etc.

The only connection between the 2 environments is that they allow - with approval - limited use of our home printers while remoting in, with the understanding that we are not printing any client or business confidential material at home. They can track that, so I don't do it.

I managed my desktop. I even built it myself. IBM didn't even acknowledge I had a PC, there was no budget for them. They assumed I was using a 3279 terminal. This was my first office PC (a 339 AT board from a super market controller).

That why I say "Try doing that today". No way you're "fooling" their system and getting in without an approved device.

I have no idea how many 3278 terminals I installed/repaired and then eventually replaced with IBM-PC's. Hundreds upon hundreds while working for a Fortune 50 (yes, fifty) company back in the 80's and 90's. The 3278's were used by everyone from the research lab scientists to the mechanics in the power plant.

I still remember lifting them suckers out of the big foam filled cardboard box. Most times it was

The most laughable part was when the suits on Mahogany Row found out that the scientists were getting their 3278's replaced with IBM-PC's. Well, that just wasn't right, so they ordered IBM-PC's for themselves. During the install we'd add a 3278 emulator card and they'd use the PC as a glorified mainframe terminal. Nothing else. We we're tossing out perfectly good 3278 terminals like old newspapers because management wanted "computers" on their desks.

I understand that and if I lived within 150 miles of management they would have screwed with me I'm sure. Nobody really knew what we were doing and as long as we were giving them good numbers they didn't care. We were doing all sorts of IBM illegal things, that FARLINK server being one of them. It was invisible on the other end of the coax. I even got a few PROFs notes asking me why I was in the office at 2200. I had to be there, I was typing on the 3279 on my desk ;-)

I did give an IBM VP (Ed Lucente IBM Far East) a FARLINK login for our office. He didn't have a clue what it was but he used it. My FARLINK ran a lot faster than HPO on the 9600 modem we gave him. IBM HPO was still running 2400. He was on Captiva for a week and then we never saw him again. I deleted the login after he left.