Any advice for how to do multi-room (whole-house) audio and video? That is being able to distribute a source (audio/video) to multiple rooms in a residence. This might be mostly for music, but sometimes you want to distribute video: For example watch the same movie in the living room and kitchen while preparing dinner.

Requirements:

* Use Cat6 cables between rooms, not HDMI.

* One-to-many - i.e. watch the same program (or listen to the same music) in multiple rooms.

* Forward USB keyboard/mouse. For plain A/V just supporting IR signal forwarding might be OK, but keyboard/mouse forwarding works for A/V and computers.

Strongly desired:

* Should support at least 4K 30Hz.

* Prefer standards, and avoid single-vendor solutions. A single-vendor solution may be acceptable if vendor is solid and well-established.

* Any device with HDMI output (encrypted or not) can be usable as an input (source). This includes sharing a laptop screen.

* Output can be any TV/monitor or A/V receiver or soundbar with HDMI input.

* Be able to share A/V and IP data over the same Cat6 cable.

* Prefer if inputs don't all have to be a single central location. Ideal is that any "satellite" (non-central) location can switched between input and output. However, that may not be realistic.

* Should support at least 2 (and preferably 4) independent distributed "channels". Any output should be able to select any of distributed sources as well as local non-shared sources (like a laptop). It is probably fine to hook up each shared stream and each local device to the HDMI inputs of the monitor/soundbar and use the "input" or "source" on the monitor/soundbar (or remote) to switch.

* Ok if video is compressed or not 100% synchronized, but any lags should be small and hard-to-notice, especially if not all the same.

* Bonus if using WiFi is an option (even if reduced quality).

* CEC pass-though is a plus.

Resources:

I like the concepts of SDVoE (Software Defined Video-over-Ethernet) - https://sdvoe.org/. I like the idea that the central "crossroads" unit is just a fast Ethernet switch. However, it seems very much focused on business rather than residential uses, and requires 10G Ethernet.

HDBaseT doesn't seem quite as elegant, but seems a little more accessible for residential installation.

I also see a number of "HDMI over IP" solutions. Unclear if they adhere to any standards. It's hard to find something that supports both one-to-many and keyboard/mouse forwarding. The former seem to be intended for AV while the latter is more intended for KVM applications. Something that works well for both would be preferable.

Submissions by Per_Bothner

Ask HV: multi-room audio/video, preferably IP-based

Ask HV: multi-room audio/video, preferably IP-based