[SOLVED] Hardware Needs - Check my Understanding?

[TheDreadPirate]

Transcoding happens on the server, not the client (the Shield in your example).

Having said that, I would opt to have an external Android TV client over using a TV's built in Android TV/Fire TV. The codec support in most smart TVs is lacking even when they're new, they age poorly, rarely get software updates, etc. The Shield is a very capable Android TV device for Jellyfin and should be able to direct play most content (no transcoding required on the server). Price no object, it is one of the best Android TV clients. If you're price conscious, a Chromecast with Google TV 4K has worked pretty well for me.

As for storage and the server. You don't NEED a NAS for storage. All of my storage is located in the same PC running Jellyfin. But if you don't want to manage a lot of storage, a NAS will simplify and automate most of the management of your storage.

The specs for the PC running jellyfin depends on how many simultaneous users you will have. If you only play the 4K 60FPS (I'm assuming HDR) content on a device that natively supports that, you can get away with a fairly modest PC. If you have a lot of devices that don't support 4K and/or HDR, you may need a dedicated GPU to handle that transcoding (HDR to SDR conversion is computationally expensive).