Abstract: A method and apparatus for displaying video data on a computer display. Video data is digitized at a video rate and displayed at a different (higher) rate. The digitized video data is provided to the computer memory along with the computer-generated display data. Thus, the video data is part of the windowing environment and can be manipulated like any other window on the display screen. The video data can be arbitrarily sized and is not limited by the input format. The video input is provided to the computer system as a video stream. Next, the video data is resampled and converted from, e.g., the NTSC standard 640.times.480 array into an N.times.M array where N is less than or equal to 640, and M is less than or equal to 480. The video data is then selectively stored in the computer memory with the computer display data by referencing a bit map in the computer memory, producing a region of pixel data that is fully compatible with other windows in the windowing environment.

Abstract: A method and apparatus for a processor or other system device to map processor words to an associated random access memory. In one case, processor words are mapped directly to RAM with no modification. In another case, 32-bit pixels (eight bits each of red, green, blue and alpha) are converted to or from 16-bit pixels (four bits each of red, green, blue and alpha) using an ordered dithering technique. The ordered dithering technique spatially distributes the information that would otherwise be lost by truncation. This is accomplished by replacing exact pixel values with their pseudo-random average. This reduces the required pixel storage requirements by half, while maintaining a higher image quality than would be achieved by truncation alone.