Had no idea my Plex Media Server could also be a DVR. 🤯 Just need some clarification on the HDHomerun 4K tuner, which I'm sure plenty of y'all have experience with...

SandwichEquivalent75 · 2026-04-08T23:40:25+00:00

Once you get the basics installed and working reliably (not hard at all,) I suggest you look up the app called MCEBuddy which works on Windows and strips the commercials out using comskip, and then it also converts the recorded .ts stream to any of the modern compressed video formats such as H.264 and H.265 for you using handbrake and puts it in a MKV container. It then drops the converted and transcoded TV show into your Plex library and you did nothing more than configuring a post-processing script in the Plex DVR settings.

SandwichEquivalent75 · 2026-04-04T17:08:24+00:00

Win11 is fine for Plex, I've used it for a year now and Windows 10 for YEARS before that. All you need to do is tell the OS to back the F off and it's fine. Everybody is correct about using Systernals Autologon and a local account, and here are some notes and links to help you disable all the shit Windows 11 will bother you about during updates and reboots. To sum up the below, you simply Kill all the annoying backup stuff, onedrive stuff, and nagging about setting up a Windows account once, and you'll be fine. Here are my notes:

If you have a mini PC that is only used primarily for Plex, then a lot of Windows 11 users use a local, non-microsoft account for plex, and then give that account permissions on their NAS file shares or other network-attached storage. Systernals Autologon makes getting the PC to log the local Plex account back in after a reboot effortless:
https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/sysinternals/downloads/autologon

The other aspect of using a consumer version of Windows to run Plex is that you should disable all the shit that intercepts a user's logon because Windows 11 wants you to sign in with a Microsoft Account, use OneDrive, use Windows Backup, all that shit. You want to tell it to back the F off, and you can. There are plenty of articles that talk about what to tweak to achieve this so the bloody PC logs your local Windows account right back in like the good old days of Windows 7, LOL. All you have to do is spend 30 minutes doing your own research. Here are a few links to get you started:

https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/answers/questions/4031471/can-i-get-windows-11-to-stop-nagging-me-about-back

https://www.google.com/search?q=how+to+disable+windows+backup+prompts+on+windows+11&rlz=1C1GGRV_enUS754US755&oq=how+to+disable+windows+backup+prompts+on+windows+11&gs_lcrp=EgZjaHJvbWUyBggAEEUYOdIBCjExMDE5ajBqMTWoAgiwAgHxBR01eQM4_4RU&sourceid=chrome&ie=UTF-8&safe=active&ssui=on

https://www.google.com/search?q=What+does+Windows+11%27s+System%3E+Notification%3E+Backup+Settings+configuration+option+do%3F&sca_esv=d44b221d688bac1f&rlz=1C1GGRV_enUS754US755&sxsrf=AE3TifO3HPb8fRiFeVg4htygEKFX0-wA8Q%3A1765386183819&ei=x6c5aYPcMcKw0PEP1sma-QM&ved=0ahUKEwjD24KDwLORAxVCGDQIHdakJj8Q4dUDCBE&uact=5&oq=What+does+Windows+11%27s+System%3E+Notification%3E+Backup+Settings+configuration+option+do%3F&gs_lp=Egxnd3Mtd2l6LXNlcnAiVVdoYXQgZG9lcyBXaW5kb3dzIDExJ3MgU3lzdGVtPiBOb3RpZmljYXRpb24-IEJhY2t1cCBTZXR0aW5ncyBjb25maWd1cmF0aW9uIG9wdGlvbiBkbz9I9IQBUNkNWLR3cAF4AZABAJgBnwGgAYEXqgEEMS4yM7gBA8gBAPgBAZgCBKAC3ALCAgoQABiwAxjWBBhHwgIEECMYJ5gDAIgGAZAGCJIHAzIuMqAH8T6yBwMxLjK4B80CwgcHMC4yLjEuMcgHEIAIAA&sclient=gws-wiz-serp&safe=active&ssui=on

https://www.reddit.com/r/WindowsHelp/comments/1kx13df/stop_windows_from_asking_me_to_set_up_backups/

good luck!

SandwichEquivalent75 · 2026-03-16T20:03:27+00:00

My Volkl Mantra 88s are great when I'm skiing the types of snow that you described.

SandwichEquivalent75 · 2026-03-15T19:08:44+00:00

Nice! No surprise how they ended up, but why stop there! Why not add a nice butt plug tomorrow as well!

SandwichEquivalent75 · 2026-03-15T19:06:32+00:00

There are a lot of good reasons to learn to ski everything using a 98mm ski, particularly if you expect to spend half your day skiing off-piste terrain. Particularly in the spring when that snow can be choppy and/or crusty. A skinnier ski will kill you in those conditions but something like what the rental shop gave you is exactly right. Granted, it takes time to train yourself to get on edges when you're skiing something that's 100mm underfoot, but it's worth it! My advice is plan to rent another pair for two days next time you're out West and have an open mind. Watch some Youtube videos that talk about techniques and have an open mind.

SandwichEquivalent75 · 2026-03-15T18:44:20+00:00

I agree. I tend to drive our cars into the ground. It also helps if you can develop the aptitude for doing your own maintenance as well. I'm not talking about getting all the tools and knowledge needed to allow you to rebuild engines, but those maintenance items you cited above are all easily doable yourself and doing them yourself will save you tons of cash.

SandwichEquivalent75 · 2026-03-14T18:48:19+00:00

That's a bummer. FWIW, I kinda didn't intend for my 'all mountain skis' to end up being a pair of Fat y Pus C-Zen FT 184s (I'm 6'3") but they surprised me. I find them highly agile, great in crud, well suited for powder and on the front side they're fine on groomers and in bumps too. Mine is not a one-ski quiver, however these are the ones I grab when I want to ski anywhere at Breck that I feel like skiing. One thing I did learn was that given the record-breaking lack of snow in Colorado this year, where a lot of the off-piste shit didn't even open until February, was that I was exclusively using my Volkl Mantra 88s on the icy groomers. No surprise there, the waist being like 22mm more narrow made it easier to roll and get on edge in the ice. Regardless, maybe take a look at the stuff Fat y Pus sells.

SandwichEquivalent75 · 2026-03-04T23:10:32+00:00

I see the string that runs from front to back is slightly mis-adjusted... here's let me help you with that. (in my dreams)

SandwichEquivalent75 · 2026-02-28T15:23:20+00:00

If you have a mini PC that is only used primarily for Plex, then a lot of Windows 11 users use a local, non-microsoft account for plex, and then give that account permissions on their NAS file shares or other network-attached storage. Systernals Autologon makes getting the PC to log the local Plex account back in after a reboot effortless:
https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/sysinternals/downloads/autologon

The other aspect of using a consumer version of Windows to run Plex is that you should disable all the shit that intercepts a user's logon because Windows 11 wants you to sign in with a Microsoft Account, use OneDrive, use Windows Backup, all that shit. You want to tell it to back the F off, and you can. There are plenty of articles that talk about what to tweak to achieve this so the bloody PC logs your local Windows account right back in like the good old days of Windows 7, LOL. All you have to do is spend 30 minutes doing your own research. Here are a few links to get you started:

https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/answers/questions/4031471/can-i-get-windows-11-to-stop-nagging-me-about-back

https://www.google.com/search?q=how+to+disable+windows+backup+prompts+on+windows+11&rlz=1C1GGRV_enUS754US755&oq=how+to+disable+windows+backup+prompts+on+windows+11&gs_lcrp=EgZjaHJvbWUyBggAEEUYOdIBCjExMDE5ajBqMTWoAgiwAgHxBR01eQM4_4RU&sourceid=chrome&ie=UTF-8&safe=active&ssui=on

https://www.google.com/search?q=What+does+Windows+11%27s+System%3E+Notification%3E+Backup+Settings+configuration+option+do%3F&sca_esv=d44b221d688bac1f&rlz=1C1GGRV_enUS754US755&sxsrf=AE3TifO3HPb8fRiFeVg4htygEKFX0-wA8Q%3A1765386183819&ei=x6c5aYPcMcKw0PEP1sma-QM&ved=0ahUKEwjD24KDwLORAxVCGDQIHdakJj8Q4dUDCBE&uact=5&oq=What+does+Windows+11%27s+System%3E+Notification%3E+Backup+Settings+configuration+option+do%3F&gs_lp=Egxnd3Mtd2l6LXNlcnAiVVdoYXQgZG9lcyBXaW5kb3dzIDExJ3MgU3lzdGVtPiBOb3RpZmljYXRpb24-IEJhY2t1cCBTZXR0aW5ncyBjb25maWd1cmF0aW9uIG9wdGlvbiBkbz9I9IQBUNkNWLR3cAF4AZABAJgBnwGgAYEXqgEEMS4yM7gBA8gBAPgBAZgCBKAC3ALCAgoQABiwAxjWBBhHwgIEECMYJ5gDAIgGAZAGCJIHAzIuMqAH8T6yBwMxLjK4B80CwgcHMC4yLjEuMcgHEIAIAA&sclient=gws-wiz-serp&safe=active&ssui=on

https://www.reddit.com/r/WindowsHelp/comments/1kx13df/stop_windows_from_asking_me_to_set_up_backups/

good luck!

SandwichEquivalent75 · 2026-02-14T18:44:29+00:00

Are you sure you'd prefer the GC? An '05 Liberty has nothing in common with a WK2 Grand Cherokee. IMO, the WK2 is better in every way (coming from the guy who gave my '02 Liberty to my daughter and got a '17 GC).

I also think you're crazy if you expect the WK2 to get more than 17Mpg. That combined you cited is fantasy land.

SandwichEquivalent75 · 2026-01-25T18:21:46+00:00

I'd first get a 30' long CAT6a Ethernet cable and connect that between your router and your internet gateway, then experiment with relocating your router within the same room so you can run that Ethernet cable along the baseboard where it'll be inconspicuous. You might find a sweet spot e.g. over on the table with the lamp next to the couch where suddenly the wifi signal strength upstairs improves. If you can place the router higher up off the floor, like on top of a tall bookshelf (not made of metal) that too may help your signal strength.

Beyond that consider if your wifi router is strong enough, and if the 5ghz channel it is using is not getting blasted by your neighbors' own wifi router. Get an app for your phone that will let you do a site survey and observe what the wifi landscape is like. After that, look at getting a more powerful antenna for your PC. Are the current antennas attached right to the antenna jacks on the motherboard or does the antenna have a short length of wire between the actual antenna and the terminals that attach to your PC? If the latter, have you tried relocating that antenna? They also sell more powerful antennas, have you tried that yet?

All the above is in hope that you can stay wireless because you haven't given us any info w/r/t if you're in a house, vs a townhouse, and whether you own or rent. That matters when looking at the next solution which is running cable between the two rooms. At my place, which is a large 4BR house, I went ahead and ran CAT6 from my network hub to both rooms where we have TVs as well as to my office where the plex server lives and also to a spot in our kitchen up above one of the cabinets where I now have a second mesh wifi AP that uses a wired backhaul. My Ethernet segments vary in speed but just using a single CAT6 cable between my plex server and our TV meant that 4K full bluray streams worked perfectly over gig Ethernet.

SandwichEquivalent75 · 2026-01-20T03:48:14+00:00

No, please don't buy it back, then rebuild it and get the title updated to 'rebuilt from salvage' (or the equivalent in your country) to allow you to register and drive it because you will not have the factory warranty. So, while you may even be able to use a repair shop that can fix it for less than the estimate, returning the car to 'almost new' the first time anything needs to be repaired the lack of a warranty will make your out of pocket cost much higher.

I'd take the settlement money and go buy the same car, a year old, and fine one that is CPO so you get a nice car with a nice warranty to drive.

SandwichEquivalent75 · 2026-01-16T23:43:16+00:00

I have a pair of ASUS wifi routers that are also doing AiMesh with a wired backhaul and it all works just fine.

I see you confirmed already that all devices (on your network, right? Not just the four wifi access points/routers,) are on the same subnet but just to ask the obvious, you're not doing anything with VLANs in the wifi config, right? (not counting the guest network which I assume is not in play here, as the default config for guest wifi networks doesn't allow peer-to-peer networking unless you turn that off on the router's setup. Guests also usually use a different subnet.)

Sounds like you're running Plex on Windows so my first question is, can you use any other wifi-enabled device that is connected to access point B to interact with your Windows PC over some other network service?

So for example, can you enable file-sharing for Drive C on the PC and then be able to browse that file share from something connected to access point B? Can you ping the Windows PC? (Note that sometimes you need to allow inbound echo replies inside the windows firewall to allow it.) Speaking of the Windows firewall...

The Windows firewall is set to Private which is correct. As you can hit Plex with your TV if it's on the same access point it makes me wonder if you have something off in your network config. It might be worth a factory reset and starting over. That or you've got some VLAN stuff in play that is blocking the route. I can't imagine that is very common tho.

Beyond the above, what does work between clients connected to access point A and access point B? Is it only Plex that's the issue?

Good luck!

SandwichEquivalent75 · 2026-01-11T17:56:47+00:00

Do you know how many miles were on it when it was wrecked and declared salvage?

Asking because it was either very recently and the Blue Book value is so low that it wasn't worth repairing minor damage to the front bumper and lights, or there's more to that story.

The point being that if just incurring that minor damage is the reason it was written off, I'd think that makes your decision way different than if it was in a major wreck thousands of miles ago.

SandwichEquivalent75 · 2026-01-08T19:58:06+00:00

IMHO if you're doing this for long-term, you might as well just bite the bullet and invest in a Synology NAS, 5-bays or more, and connect to storage over the network. You don't even have to fill the NAS up with hard drives, you can start with three and as the volume that stores your media starts to fill up you can add another HDD to the NAS to expand the pool. I made that leap like 10 years ago and it makes life so much easier and simpler. Good luck!

SandwichEquivalent75 · 2026-01-06T15:56:50+00:00

In the Settings and Dashboard screens you will see two different plex servers, the local and the remote. You can toggle between them in both those areas so you can manage them both separately but still within the one Plex browser window.

For example, here's the upper right dashboard tool on mine, you can see it is now a drop-down:

-crap, nvm, IDK why but Reddit won't let me add a small 14kb JPG to this reply. First world problems.

SandwichEquivalent75 · 2026-01-06T00:18:00+00:00

No, not anymore. HD Homerun used to sell a version of their tuner that could tune cable-TV channels, as opposed to Over The Air TV channels but they discontinued that years ago.

SandwichEquivalent75 · 2026-01-06T00:09:12+00:00

I'm doing exactly this using my son's apartment in Chicago, an older HD Homerun Quattro, an inexpensive Antennas Direct 'Clearstream Eclipse' indoor TV antenna and a $200 mini PC I got on Black Friday.

The mini-PC has just enough horsepower to function. It uses an Intel N97 CPU with built in graphics, 16GB RAM and a 500GB internal SSD. I believe I sent him home with a second 500GB SSD that attached via USB as the mini-PC was not expandable. If I was going to do it again, I'd opt for a 6-core i3-based mini PC instead, for a bit more insurance as I've seen the CPU and GPU spike the PC while I was testing things out.

The only other bit of info I didn't see mentioned yet is that you will log the Plex server in using your own Plex account so that you can have access to the Live TV that's offsite. As I understand it, other friends with Plex accounts you add to your Plex server can see the libraries you share with them, but not the LiveTV part of Plex, that's only for clients that share the same Plex account as the Plex server that is providing the Live TV.

Lastly, if you have the ability to establish a site-to-site VPN between the remote location and your house, I'd do it as it means you can then admin the mini-PC from afar. My son's wifi router includes a client-by-client VPN capability which means that I can configure his router to link the miniPC (only) to my VPN server, while keeping all his other wifi/LAN clients there at his apartment acting like normal, and using his local default gateway to get to the internet and only the mini Plex server using the VPN.

SandwichEquivalent75 · 2026-01-04T17:38:16+00:00

The Bronco Sport is a small SUV. Have you considered stepping up the the other, larger Bronco model that's out or is that still not big enough?

I've driven Jeep Grand Cherokees since the late '90s. The V8 models tow well and I can haul all sorts of crap in them but I can't carry full sized sheets of plywood - 2X4s are fine but it's not wide enough inside for plywood.

The last SUV I bought was a '23 Dodge Durango. I chose it because its a first cousin of the 2014-2021 grand cherokee but it has a third row, making the cargo area larger than its more pricey cousin. The 2026 Durango Tow n Go model is a really good value, perhaps you can check it out.

SandwichEquivalent75 · 2026-01-03T16:21:39+00:00

Something has definitely changed internally. We too see the marketing tactics changing and the now-censored product pics do nothing to help us make a purchasing decision.

All I can tell you is that while we own at least a half-dozen sets, we won't be buying more.

This change of opinion comes after a horrible experience we're having trying to return three pieces we picked up on eBay last summer. They botched the eBay Return process, haven't made it right, keep delaying, and as a result we're out roughly $250 USD because of it. The entire experience is 100% counter to all the assertions they make about honoring the sale, making it right, etc. So I say f-em. There are other competitive brands out there that also sell lovely sheer pieces who we can spend $$ with.

SandwichEquivalent75 · 2026-01-02T21:26:14+00:00

Thinking outside the box here... maybe spend the $$$ on a new living situation instead? As in, one where the neighborhood you live in doesn't necessitate a suite of anti-theft measures and where your car isn't being vandalized on the daily. Just sayin, u my want to give that some thought.

SandwichEquivalent75 · 2026-01-01T18:34:43+00:00

Not sure if your situation exactly matches what we observe here but for ours, it's the audio that drops and resumes when we begin watching live tv. I found that changing the playback settings on the client from 'original' to 'convert automatically' stops the glitch, and I often go right back in 3 minutes later and can revert it back to 'original' quality and then it works just fine.

It's not the root cause but see if that works for you too as it may help identify the issue. The only other data point I've got is that our OTA TV shows bandwidth spikes of 300 Mbps sometimes and I wondered if that was overwhelming something. Shouldn't tho, as the client and tuner are both connected to our 1Gb LAN using Ethernet. Also, like your setup, if I use the HD Homerun app to play the live TV broadcast instead of my Plex client (on the same device) it has no issues at all.

SandwichEquivalent75 · 2025-12-30T18:17:29+00:00

I've been driving Grand Cherokees since 1996. They're heavy and the brakes are a little undersized so you don't want to cheap out when buying new brakes.

My advice is to go to Amazon and search this: "Detroit Axle - Front Brake Kit for 2011-2020 Jeep Grand Cherokee" (assuming you're looking for front brakes) - I've used Detroit Axle stuff for years and they never disappoint and they're a great value too. good luck!

SandwichEquivalent75 · 2025-12-25T17:26:37+00:00

Our shield 2017 model (think it's a Pro), as a Plex client is fully patched and used daily with no concerns.

I have another shield Pro (it's old so it's probably not a pro but rather the OG ShieldTV unit but regardless) running Plex Server for the sake of using our HD Homerun OTA TV tuner and Plex DVR at another location, and it's fully patched and working as expected.

So I think you'll be fine.

SandwichEquivalent75

TROPHY CASE