We are developing a family of high-performance interactive computing systems, known as Magic, that act as both a video server and a video processor. As a video server, the system delivers thousands of fully interactive bit streams to thousands of independent viewers. As a video processor, Magic acquires, processes in continuous real time, and displays video sources at resolutions scaling beyond high-definition television. Currently, developers must measure design performance by constructing costly hardware prototypes that often fail to accurately emulate the performance of the targeted system. The Magic system enables the use of full resolution video sources to program and verify complex video system algorithms. Video systems are processed in continuous real time, thus letting developers accurately predict design performance. To date, no video server system has emerged that, by design, efficiently and cost-effectively delivers thousands of fully interactive video streams. Our fundamental intent in creating the Magic system was to process video in real time. Consequently, we structured its core processing element, input/output subsystem, local disk, memory interfaces, and its interprocessor communications buses to make accessing, processing, and displaying video a cost-effective and scaled process.
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