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I'm thinking of buying a mini PC and connecting it to some sort of network storage. Then, I could download content to this network drive on other home computers. I'd imagine I'd use XBMC, unless something better has come along in the last few years?
Curious to hear how others have solved this problem, and how it's working for you.
Plex also has an option to use Google Drive or Dropbox and others as a storage medium through their new (although only for the premium Plex Pass holders) Plex Cloud (it's also possible to roll your own though, i've written about it here: https://nunosouto.com/blog/how-to-install-plex-cloud)
Another thing that's nice about setting up a full computer over an android based media device is that you have a fairly decent computer directly connected to the tv to use when/if you have to.
I've used Plex in a VM and a ZFS based NAS for nearly 4 years now and have had relatively few problems. I've used Android, iOS, Windows, Apple TV, Amazon Fire TV, and MacOS clients all with decently usable results. The hardest thing to deal with in Plex is mostly about sizing your server for the amount of transcoded streams you'll need. With Kodi, this concern is mostly relegated to the client. While mobile computing capabilities have gotten greater the fundamental problem I ran into for years was that no one device will play everything correctly besides a PC. As such, a transcoding server from a PC (even though Plex has several server options including nVidia Shield and some NAS devices) makes the most sense for compatibility across all random media files you could obtain online. Otherwise, your network transfer speed matters still just like with Kodi and a lot of people's wireless setups are just really bad that get glossed over when using streaming native media like from Amazon and Netflix.
A deal-breaker would be losing remotes that Roku offer (or similar alternatives) as they make media viewing simple and easy for adults, kids and guests alike.
I also have one of the less used PCs in the house running Plex Server, and we connect to that for viewing Plex Channels (basically, plugins that front-end NBC.com, ABC.com, and a bunch of other services) to take some of the transcoding load off the Synology.
I have a lifetime subscription to Plex.tv and LOVE the service. The only thing I'd like to improve about my set up is the processor in the Synology, which is too slow to transcode on the fly so I have to target my encodes to my current hardware and rerip when my clients get more capable.