for the use of 1 remote, you might think about logitech harmony hub, selecting all devices. even a nice instruction here about connect them all together with your vero, creating activities like watch TV, play games, watch movie etc etc and within those activities you select the devices you want to use. You configure it on pc-app and synchronize them to hub and connecting tablet/mobile with harmony app. Even you can select commands to devices (game mode when using ps4, selecting normal mode when on movie etc etc.
for connecting the Vero to this, follow below, worked perfectly.
i use this harmony hub for many years, just to get ride off the many diff remotes. Just if you want to do something else, harmony app also offer possibility to adjust this as per device mode, instead of activity.
I have no experience with spdif as i want all decoders within AVR are selectable. Later when EARC is full available within AVR and TV, then it would be an option i guess to get it via HDMI.