My environment
I haven't bought a CD in a very long time and until 3D movies came out, I haven't been buying DVDs or BRDs in the last few years. I also haven't had any kind of TV feed such as cable or satellite in over 8 years. Instead, I've relied on the last 3 generations of Apple TV (and with it, Netflix) and loads of iTunes content. I bought the first generation of Apple TV in an effort to manage the 1200+ CDs I owned. When iTunes Match came out, I bought into the service the day it launched and since then I enjoyed cloud music Nirvana on my iPads (2 in our home) and iPhones (again, 2). Having access to all my music, movies, and TV shows anywhere was fantastic. I say was because there is no easy way to get access to iTunes content with an Android device. There are ways, but they are not easy ways.
Solving The Music Problem
Sadly, Google Music is not available in Canada. If it was, my problems would have been solved fairly easily because it provides the same capabilities as iTunes Match for free. Until Google navigates the impenetrable mangroves of Canadian copyright (but if Apple can, why can't Google?), we Canadians need another method to access our music in the cloud.
First I tried the venerable Winamp player and the obscure orb media server. This allows you to install a media server on your PC and access that server from anywhere on the Internet. I'd used this setup 5 years ago and found it a curiosity at best. You need to keep you PC on at all times, which isn't a huge issue, but on an Android device you need to access your media library through an extremely clumsy web interface. Really, it's a mess.
Then I stumbled upon Plex as I was looking for an alternative to Apple TV. Most smart TVs do a fair job of streaming movies and TV and there are set top boxes such as the Roku and Google TV, but I was looking for something that would allow access to music and I found it in Plex.
Plex is available in iTunes and Google Play stores. I haven't tried it on a set top box yet, but I can say that it works extremely well on my Galaxy S4. The interface is clean, attractive, and fairly smooth. It does a good job of collecting and displaying album art. Streaming starts nearly instantaneously, which is great. Again, the media server needs to be running on a PC, but that's a minor issue. Until Google brings its music service to Canada, I'll be relying on Plex.
