I just need a fast file host. The idea of video transcoding is pretty strange to me. What happened to the days where the client had the necessary codecs to pla

I just need a fast file host. The idea of video transcoding is pretty strange to me. What happened to the days where the client had the necessary codecs to play a video? Even if you store the video in the destination format, adding subtitles immediately requires Plex (and similar) to transcode, rendering the subtitles into the video. Personally, I have VLC installed on my Chromecast and, while it's not as pretty or convenient as Plex, the format of my files is irrelevant.