RealMagic, from Sigma Designs

Sigma Designs

Sigma Designs is an American public corporation that designs and builds high-performance system-on-a-chip semiconductor technologies for Internet-based set-top boxes, DVD players/recorders, high-definition televisions, media processors, digital media adapters, portable media players and home...

, was one of the first fully compliant MPEG playback boards on the market in the mid-90s. An ISA

Industry Standard Architecture

Industry Standard Architecture is a computer bus standard for IBM PC compatible computers introduced with the IBM Personal Computer to support its Intel 8088 microprocessor's 8-bit external data bus and extended to 16 bits for the IBM Personal Computer/AT's Intel 80286 processor...

 board, it operated as a pass through video board that combined an MPEG video stream into a computer's regular display signal, using special software to scale and align the MPEG video into windows onscreen

In their early days, RealMagic boards were called ReelMagic.

Successors

Sigma design's Realmagic superseded by

• Realmagic Hollywood+
• Realmagic X-Card
• Realmagic NetStream2000 - 4000

Software written for the REAL magic hardware includes:

• Under a Killing Moon - Access Software
• Gabriel Knight
• Escape form Cybercity
• Kings Quest VI - Sierra Online
• Dragons Lair
• Police Quest IV - Sierra Online
• Return to Zork - Infocom
• The Lord of the Rings - Interplay

Note: the above titles were on a REELMAGIC demo CD that came with the hardware. The CD also contained corporate promotion videos, training videos, news footage of JFK and the Apollo moon mission. Also included in the bundle, was a complete version of The Horde - published by Crystal Dynamics (1994)

Other software includes:

• The Psychotron (an interactive mystery movie) - Merit Software