I have a good library of movies and TV on a home server that runs Plex and Emby. I currently stream things to my home theater by using the Plex/Emby apps on my smartphone, then using Chromecast to the TV.

I find the experience generally frustrating and less than ideal. Browsing and controlling playback via my phone is great, but fast-forward, rewind, and timestamp jumping are very slow and buggy; the film often restarts as often as it actually goes to the right spot. Also, if there's a less-than-perfect file, Plex/Emby/Chromecast often stutter terribly where VLC or WMP on a computer handle it without a hiccup.

I used to use an HTPC with pretty satisfactory results, but calibration, codec support, audio output, etc., were time consuming and frustrating.

I'm trying to find out if there's something that's just better. I'm willing to consider just about any option that offers better, more reliable performance. Wired networking is an option.

I just started learning about Android TV, and that seems like a reasonable option. I'm not sure if that'll solve the performance problems. It does seem like seek/ff/rw are better on the phone when the Chromecast isn't involved, and performance on the web client is great. Not sure about a Mi Box vs a Roku or whatever. Or something else entirely.

I want something that just works more reliably. I don't want to have to think "I want to rewind to hear that part again, but it's not important enough to risk the movie restarting."

So I'm looking for suggestions. Please help, and thanks.