I'm just a home hobbyist, but I think my AV distribution system was pretty nice back in the day. I used CQC for the home automation hub, SageTV for my DVR system, and had a whole house audio system as well as a home theater style receiver/amp for my surround sound system in my Den. A large capacity DVD changer, a multi-zone music server running on my computer, and a few other items rounded out the system. I could play/watch any content in most of the rooms in the house. Not every room had a TV, but I could even send the TV audio to those rooms too. We did this most often when watching TV with a crowd of people (like for the Super Bowl) and piped the audio into the kitchen (where there was not TV at the time). Certainly for about 10-15 years or so, there wasn't really anything available to the average consumer that would provide a similar experience. Now I think it is easier to achieve all this. About the only thing that is missing with today's consumer products is the ability to watch something on several TVs and have everything synced together. That was always one advantage to the system I had it set up. You could watch the same show on multiple TVs from the same source which ensured everything was synched together.
Now that CQC is dead, and the influx of streaming services (for both music and TV), we have basically stopped using that portion of the automation system. In fact, we really don't interact with the system at all anymore and the only parts "still functioning" are the truly automation elements like turning lights on/off or adjusting the HVAC set points based on time of day or home alarm status.
I really need to dive into Home Assistant to replace CQC, but I have been too busy or too lazy to start.
