multiple raw image acquisition

I'm not sure I understand your question.  The DM648 has 5 video ports so, yes, you could hook up 3+ cameras.

Sorry, let me clarify.  I know that multiple cameras can be hooked up, I was wondering about simultaneous image capture using multiple video ports.  So would it be possible to hook up an array of cameras to the DM648 and sample them all simultaneously?  Can I do this with the DSP BIOS drivers, or would I have to roll my own to get more than one port active at a time?

If so, I'm sure there is some limit to the total data rate before the EDMA chokes.  The data sheet says that raw capture can take place at up to 80MHz, but I couldn't find a "total" throughput... I doubt that I could use all 10 channels at 80 MHz, but what is a ball park total limit for 8 bit channel input?  X total MHz or something to that effect?

Thanks for any information.

All the ports can be active simultaneously.  They all have FIFOs to buffer the data and the EDMA would transfer from the VP FIFO to DDR2.  The DM648 has a DDR2-533 interface.  That means the DDR2 clock runs at 266.5 MHz and taking into account both clock edges the data rate is 533 MHz.  With 32-bit wide DDR2 that comes to 2132 MByte/sec of throughput, not accounting for CAS latency, refreshes, etc.  Let's say you only get 75% of that in terms of actual throughput (FYI, I just pulled 75% out of the air, not sure what the real number would be).  That would translate to 1599 MB/sec of throughput on the DDR2 interface.  If you have 10 cameras that are 1-byte wide operating at 80 MHz that would be you need 800 MB/sec of throughput just to service the cameras.  So you'd effectively be using up half of your DDR2 bandwidth just to dump the camera data.

I think the challenge would be getting all the FIFO thresholds and EDMA transfer sizes setup such that by the time you've cycled through all 10 cameras that you haven't dropped any samples on the last camera.

So my feeling would be that as long as there are no other big consumers of DDR bandwidth while all these transfers are occurring, then you should be able to get it done.