The wife and I have decided that until this one dies (or has those weird color shifts/lines like you describe) that we are sticking with what we have. We don't have a laptop (well we both have work ones, but they are property of work and I doubt we would feel compelled to use them for streaming) and we don't own any subs to streaming media. If the nieces and nephs wanted all that I suspect my sisters could bring a laptop and we would buy the cables for connection. But they don't come often/stay long enough that a day or two without tv isn't going to kill the kids. Heck if they wanted I am sure they could bring an Ipad and use our wifi connection and do the same thing.. personal tv for the younger set while the adults hang out and catch up. But you bring up very good points bc one day this old tv will show her last show and we will be up a creak with 200+ dvds. hehe. Likely we will just move to a tv that has 50 inch screen (that is what we have now with the cathode. it is HUGE and it is about 300+ lbs) that we can hook up to a dvd player. Bc we don't really plan on ever paying for streaming media. This does not mean we haven't used a smart TV like you describe. We dogsit for friends and use their Acorn and Britbox when we stay. But about a week a year of streaming tv is enough for us.