Access media files on NTFS formatted USB OTG drive (preferably without rooting) I have a physically small but digitally large (128GB) USB key on my keychain. Unfortunately since I intend to use it for Easy2Boot and to support large video files, it must not be FAT32. I know that with FAT32 everything would be easy. 

Now, since I have >4GB ISO files and video files on here which necessitates the use of NTFS, since Easy2Boot doesn't support exFAT, I was hoping that I could use Total Commander and the Paragon NTFS plugin for it to "stream" and watch my video files in VLC or some such. That way I can place any file I could otherwise watch on my PC or Mac onto the drive to take these files on a trip for instance.

However Total Commander does not provide an "Open With VLC" option, and VLC is not able to see the "mounted" NTFS partition because it does not have an NTFS plugin. 

So I am completely stuck here. My Android-fu is lacking... I'm usually an iOS user but this USB OTG storage media leaves Android as my only choice ;)

What are my options? Will my problem be elegantly solved if I root my Nexus 7 (2013 model) and install some NTFS drivers? Are there any other solutions that I can pursue without rooting?

I would consider the approach of "downloading" the file to local disk to play the video as a non-solution because video files could exceed the total storage capacity of the device (e.g. 20GB mkv file).
You could use the workaround I mentioned in MIUI forum, to use a pendrive with a NTFS format, needing no root.
To do that you need a some custom OTG drives which are bundled in some File manager apps such as MiXplorer.

The Custom USB OTG driver works well this these additional
filesystems: FAT32 (R/W), exFat(R/W), NTFS (R).
Simply open the app,
tap on the three dot menu → More settings → Enable Custom driver for
USB OTG (tick the box to enable)
Done, now insert you OTG cable and
place the pendrive on the port.