Comment Homemade solution (Score 1) 420
I also found Plex, and other database driven, setting filled servers to be too annoying to use. I installed Apache2 and pointed it at my media folder. Then I wrote a little PHP that dumps the directory as a raw list of file paths separated by line breaks! sorted by date modified. Then I banged out a quick web page that sorts those by TV show and season. Tap a show get a list of seasons, tap a season, get a list of episodes. Each episode has a link to play it in the browser in a small frame below the episode list, a link to the actual file location,and best of all, a Javascript button that launches the episode in VLC on my TV computer using VLC's built-in HTTP interface, letting me start shows on the TV from any of my iOS devices.
Also, it's LCARS themed.
Also, it's LCARS themed.