Video acquisition system including a virtual dual ported memory with adaptive bandwidth allocation

The problem of acquiring video data into computer system memory (i.e. the main memory of a computer system) is increasingly the subject of attention in the field of image/video processing. As the performance of software image processing increases in response to improvements in CPU capacity, it is increasingly necessary to provide for fast and efficient acquisition of video frames from video source devices. Typical video sources include industrial cameras, camcorders, video cameras, VCRs, TV tuners, and laserdisk players. A video capture system and method whereby video frames or images, which are received in one of a plurality of possible formats, are acquired and stored into on-board memory in an image format. The image data can then be transferred into system memory at an optimum rate. The video capture system comprises a host computer, including a video capture board, which is coupled to a video source, such as a video camera. The video source provides digital video data in a first format of a plurality of different possible formats. The video capture board includes a memory controller which receives the digital video data in the first format and selectively provides the digital video data to the buffer memory in an image format. The memory controller includes address generation logic for generating buffer memory addresses for storing the video data to the buffer memory in the image format. The address generation logic is programmable with configuration information corresponding to the first format and uses the configuration information to generate the addresses.