I was wondering if I could use Plex for what I want to do. So here it goes, I want to use some device unknown at this time to store movies downloaded from various medians and then play on my tv or maybe cast to another TV in the house. Would Plex work for this function? Also is there any advice for the type of device, i.e. external hard drive, fire cube or what?
Plex can do it. Plex is a Server/Client infrastructure. This means that you set up a computer somewhere in the house as the server, and put the media files there. Then, you use a device with a player app (a computer, a smart TV, Fire Cube/stick, phone/tablet (need Plex pass or one-time $5 charge to use phone/tablet)) to receive the video from the server. Plex will use the computer’s resources to process the video file in real-time if the device is incapable of playing the video file. Plex can also provide a secure video stream outside the house to wherever you are in the world. This does usually require a pretty decent server device in the house. You cannot put a “server” on a USB drive, it needs some kind of OS. I used to have mine on my Synology NAS until it became too insufficient for my needs.
An alternate solution for in-house setups, might be Kodi. This is a standalone program that works on a lot of devices (Nvidia Shield, Fire TV, anything Android), and can play virtually any file in any form. You can have the file locally (connected to the device via USB) or somewhere on the network (SMB). If you want to keep the videos on a drive on another computer, it’s simple to map to the network location of the drive (can even be a network-capable USB drive) and access your media that way. It does mean however, that every device you play media on must be strong enough to play the video as-is. Some newer video compression techniques (HEVC) need a proper CPU to handle. This may not be as much of an issue now as it was 5 years ago though.
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