I appreciate all of the advice; thanks for taking the time, DQ!@Killer B.
Like has been mentioned, all this shenanigans is about preferences. That's why I would not call anything you like or prefer to do wrong. Because it's all very personal, dependent on what YOU like and your own situation.
But with that said, to offer a different perspective, here is how I do it. I am not saying it's right or wrong or better but I know I have learned a TON here by finding out how others handled their stuff.
- So all my media is digitized and stored on a NAS (running RAID5)
-- This includes everything from CDs to UHD movies (which I store lossless)
- The NAS is connected to a dedicated Plex server
--So Plex is the "center" of my media world
- From there every TV has a Roku on it which the Plex app is installed and used
- I use an additional piece of software to catalogue everything so I know what form in came in and how it's been stored
So to bring in new titles is not just a "throw it on the pile" mentality. Everything has to go through the "process" and get digitized, stored and catalogued.
That's just how I do it but if you like discs there is nothing wrong with that.
There's no arguing personal tastes & preferences... to each his own, and I do use both streaming & physical media, & enjoy the benefits that each brings.
The NAS & RAID and all are beyond my milieu... I know file conversion, disc authoring, etc. but no I don't have any "server" that I use among different devices other than printers, etc
If I want to play music in another room I take my memory stick with its gob of FLAC files & play them on high quality receivers and/or DACs, or else use my laptop and paired DAC & headphone amp.
I use a really nice portable android based music dac/amp for taking my music to the gym, etc. where I can either use wired or wireless headphones and have half a Tb of storage on the removeable card.
For video, I either stream from the providers or use physical media... I've never messed much with any file conversion of video, only audio, until I tried anystream, and attempted to save just a choice few downloads to set-top playable decks, eventually finding that I was limited to being able to save them to USB drive, play as files on my Oppo, which is my only player that seems to handle them with both audio and video output playing correctly.
These few choice titles that I've streamed, some of which I have actually bought, number in only the range of a dozen or so - and are those movies that I want to save to disc in the event that they should become unavailable for streaming at some point - are the only ones that I would want to save to disc really... at some point I might want to use a server, as you do... if or when I familiarize my self with that realm of plausibilities & think it woudl be beneficial.
I'm saving the text of this conversation for later reference and am sure it will be very helpful.
Thanks again for the help; all the best!
Brian B. (killer B)