beezer wroteFirst off, this is not a debate. I'm trying to learn the difference.
From what I gather, your main goal is to server media throughout the house from one central location. Changing inputs on your TV is not the end game, but that it is all being served from one server. Okay, I personally see that as a media server of sorts, not really home automation, but that's fine.
It's not my main goal, it's part of the entertainment; AV is a major part of home automation at least for many, it gives you the "Wow" effect when everything is setup the right way.
beezer wroteI remember I visited this house a long long time ago that had audio cables spread throughout the house and it was something similar to what you wanted, it was much less technologically advanced but it was cool how they had one central location for all the audio needs and could send audio to whatever room they wanted. I think it lost its appeal within the first year for them, they never used it because having one central location for audio serving was really uncomfortable.
That means it's not setup the right way. One central location without accessibility from every room is a waste of time. When you put everything together in one location, you forget about it, you don't touch it.
For instance each room has its own in-wall screen where you can choose what to listen to ( Spotify,Deezer, DLNA, FM, etc ) what to turn on ( lights, shades, indirect light, A/C) and what to watch ( source) on your tv with voice commands.
beezer wroteNow this is where it becomes a debate:
So in your case, you have your sat receiver and DVD player in one place serving the entire house. I'll give you my house as an example why that won't work. We have 3 satellite receivers in the house (my LNB has 4 outputs) and they are each playing something different at the same time for at least 1 hour everyday. My parents will watch something, my kids will watch something, and the maid will watch something. The DVD player is another thing, if it wasn't for streaming movies it just wouldn't work. My kids watch their streaming shows, and then I want to watch my show, if we had one DVD player, it wouldn't work. Plus, getting up and going to another room to change the DVD? I don't know if you have kids, but using a FireTV is the best thing ever, I have kid mode on and let them use the remote control, and being more than one kid in the room, they watch parts of 3-4 different shows in the span of an hour, each one fighting about what to watch for 15mins. Spotify which is a great example because we do use it in the house, already plays in every room that has a TV (using FireTV) or Echo device in it which I already do, or hell even our phones. I will be listening upstairs and my wife will be listening & working downstairs. She doesn't have an Echo there but she has a cheapo Lenovo tablet that doesn't give her any problem for streaming any AV. And with Spotify, we can decide if we want to broadcast it to other devices from whatever phone/tablet is in our hand already playing. Now let's say I didn't want to do this the legal way of subscribing to these streaming services, well that's where Plex would come in handy and you know that plays on everything. The only part where I see this really being an advantage is with the cameras, our current NVR is tucked away hidden somewhere, I could connect it to the internet but I don't like doing that. My 2 dlink cameras that I have inside the house however can be viewed from the FireTV and if I had an Echo Spot or Echo Show I could view them from there as well.
I think we're confusing things here; You're talking about HDMI splitters; I am talking about HDMI-Matrix. Say I have 3 TVs and Cablevision wants to install 3 boxes; it doesn't have to be installed in every room. They all are connected to one HDMI matrix. You chose any source from the TV you have many options like ( Cablevision SAT, DVD, Plex MS, Netflix etc.. ) the HDMI matrix will send you the signal of any CV box not in use. So every TV has everything as if it was directly connected but the difference is that the TV is wall mounted with nothing really attached to it.
beezer wroteAnyways, to answer your question:
-Centralized automation using one control point - Alexa / HomeKit / Google Home can achieve that
No they can't. How can they? Does Alexa change the fan mode of your AC or turn off all lights when you leave you apartment? It has to be connected to a HA system that is capable of doing that.
beezer wrote
-AV processing - DEF. not how you want it. I've never even read home automation and media serving together in how you want it. But OK.
Quoting Wikipedia : Home automation or domotics[1] is building automation for a home, called a smart home or smart house. A home automation system will control lighting, climate, entertainment systems, and appliances. It may also include home security such as access control and alarm systems.[2] When connected with the Internet, home devices are an important constituent of the Internet of Things.A home automation system typically connects controlled devices to a central hub or "gateway"[3]. The user interface for control of the system uses either wall-mounted terminals, tablet or desktop computers, a mobile phone .application, or a Web interface, that may also be accessible off-site through the Internet
Also quoting: "Smart Home" is the term commonly used to define a residence that has appliances, lighting, heating, air conditioning, TVs, computers, entertainment audio & video systems, security, and camera systems that are capable of communicating with one another and can be controlled remotely by a time schedule, from any room in the home, as well as remotely from any location in the world by phone or internet.
Actually home automation strongest selling point is the AV integration and that's what vendors always work on to improve because the technology is always evolving and with everything being streamed nowadays they try-hard to keep up with the market needs.
And to be dead honest if it wasn't for AV i wouldn't have gone for HA in the first place. Nothing really interesting about telling Alexa to turn on the lights whatsoever, at least for me.
beezer wrote
-Complete HVAC control - This I would like to learn more about from you.
So with HVAC. We're talking radiators/furnace as well as your AC I take it? So how are you handling those requests? For the AC I'm using an IR blaster like mentioned before. For the furnace, I have 3 options, I can setup a thermostat wherever it's wired. Or I can setup a thermostat with a remote sensor. Or I could forget that main thermostat and just put a controller to start/stop the furnace and setup different thermostats throughout the property and each one can give the furnace the start/stop command. So if room 1&2 are OK but room 3 is cold, it gives the start command until it reaches the temperature.
In my case it's totally different. I have one fireplace and A/C indoor unit in every room that is part of a central A/C. Say it's Mitsubishi, every indoor unit is connected to one main central control panel ( big remote control ) which is connected to the CoolMasterNet connected to the HA processor.
For the fireplace, it has it's own mertik maxitrol box. It connects to the home network and what's nice about Crestron is that they have a logic that can control it. You just need to download it and the processor will take care of it. A nice GUI page will be added to the control screen.