Patent ID: 7843865

Claim:
A home network system, comprising: a plurality of audio/video home network output devices that output multicast streams; a plurality of audio/video home network input devices that input audio/video multicast streams; a home gateway to receive audio/video signals from service providers and to place each of the received signals on an output multicast stream; and a multicast enabled remote control, wherein the multicast enabled remote control is configured to detect and aggregate the output multicast streams from the plurality of audio/video home network output devices and the home gateway and to redirect one or more of the output multicast streams to one or more of the plurality of audio/video home network input devices based on user input when the multicast enabled remote control is in a redirect mode, wherein the multicast enabled remote control is configured to store and display the aggregated audio/video multicast streams as data and the plurality of audio/video network input devices as input devices, wherein a user wanting to play one of the aggregated audio/video multicast streams on one or more of the plurality of audio/video network input devices selects the one of the aggregated audio/video multicast streams and the one or more of the plurality of audio/video network input devices from the multicast enabled remote control.