I found Plex was a good solution for streaming a video from my laptop to my TV. It removes the need for an HDMI cord and the quality was great with no buffering. I have not gotten to streaming my music or pictures or even using Plex from outside my own house since I just installed Plex but I will get to that eventually. For now, I want to give Plex’s associated costs a run down.
Media Server: This is free to download and install on your computer. It is really good at categorizing your files and downloading relevant metadata for them.
Chromecast: This is a free way to stream from your computer to your TV. You need to use your computer to control it so you might need to get off the couch to pause the movie.
Roku: You can do everything you want for 30 days with a free trial. After that, you need to pay for a Plex subscription.
Android: The app is free and you get quite a lot of use out of it but the ability to stream a video to your phone is limited until you pay for a subscription or pay a small one-time payment ($5).
In conclusion, Plex is awesome and it hooks you quickly and then slowly takes away functionality unless you start paying for it. They are a business so this is fine but just beware that long and extended use of its features is probably not free. Your best bet seems to be using the Chromecast paired with the Media Server.
Sources:
Man and Keyboard 