Media streamer with control node enabling same isochronous streams to appear simultaneously at output ports or different streams to appear simultaneously at output ports

A media streamer, comprising:

• at least one storage node for storing a digital representation of a video presentation, said video presentation requiring a time T to present in its entirety and stored as a plurality of N data blocks, each data block storing data corresponding to approximately a T/N period of said video presentation;
• a plurality of communication nodes each having at least one input port and at least one output port, each communication node including request queue means for requesting a data block from said at least one storage node when said data block is to be readied for dispatch, and output means for converting said data block to an isochronous output stream and applying said isochronous output stream to said output port;
• a circuit switch connected between said at least one storage node and input ports of said plurality of communication nodes, said circuit switch selectively coupling one or more of said input ports to said at least one storage node to enable the data blocks stored thereat to be dispatched to input ports of one or more of said communication nodes;
• and
• at least one control node coupled at least to said plurality of communication nodes and to said at least one storage node for enabling an isochronous data stream corresponding to any one of said N blocks to appear at any output port of any of said plurality of communication nodes, said at least one control mode having an input for receiving requests for specified ones of video presentations, wherein said at least one storage node has at least one of N data blocks of one or more video presentations available for substantially immediate outputting, upon said at least one control node receiving a request for a video presentation, said at least one control node further enabling (i) isochronous data streams corresponding to a same one of said N data blocks to appear simultaneously at a plurality of output ports and isochronous data streams corresponding to different ones of said N data blocks to appear simultaneously at a plurality output ports.