actually Big Lots is the one selling the stock from Circuit City which is closing out most of their stores so these are indeed new in the box brand new items just like you would find at the CC stores. I have bought many items computer related there for excellent prices and have been extremely happy with them, The cordless mouse I am currently using, the 3 usb hubs I have connected to my pcs, a memory card reader, some speakers, the kingston flash drives and several of the SD memory cards just to name a few so I personally must say I do and would buy there, with no negatives. My husband loves to go there to see what kind of great buys he can find on tools. when they are the ones handling the liquidation of brand name stores you really can get some great buys then. Recently they had a huge liquidation of Pier One Import items. I regularly shop there which is why I have signed up with their online buzz club to get the advance info for the sales. I have never had to return anything I purchased there. I know that it does depend on which area of the country and which stores but the ones here are all excellent and I would not hesitate to purchase there. IF they do have reconditioned items for sale it says it clearly on the package and also on the sale flyers, they did have some Dyson vacuums a while back which were all labeled as reconditioned. When they did the Eckerds liquidation I stocked up on my diabetes items like the lancets, alcohol pads, and got a great new electronic blood pressure monitor for dirt cheap, same one I had looked at in Eckerds in fact. But that is just my personal shopping experiences. If I did have the spare money I would love the HP lappy unfortunately I just got a new vehicle so I am broke LOL. there will be some awesome sales heading into the Black Friday time period.

For sure you need to select the right output on your computer, in Windows that's often done by right clicking the desktop and selecting "Properties". In one of the tabs you can select an external monitor. Sound should work without changing any settings, try with a headphone first if your audio is switched on. About the RCA plugs: red and white are audio, yellow is composite video. Hope this helps at least a bit.

What you're experiencing is very common and as Randy said, a function of the processing speed of the boxes. A DVR will usually lag a regular box by a second or two because it has more to do, even when not recording because of the pause/rewind option. Essentially it's processing the signal, recording the signal on a hard drive, then outputting it to the TV. That's one more step than a regular box and by far the slowest. You need the same box for every room, even if you go with a Tivo. Or just stick to one TV for football season!

I am so sorry to hear about your mother . Here's what I had to do for mom's funeral . I was traveling to Louisiana pulling the rv when I got a call from my sister that the funeral home needed the pictures emailed to them immediately so they could create the video and the memory books and the framed picture . I had all of my pictures . I sat in my passenger seat in the truck going down the road and took pictures of the pictures on my phone ! I then emailed all of those to the funeral home . I was so afraid it would be terrible but honestly they were fine no one knew they were pictures of pictures . So you could do that too and a much better job sitting still at a table ! They can be emailed or you can send them to a photo place for printing , Walmart , CVS , all sorts of places can do it . So thinking out side of the box might be the best option .