1. An electronic system comprising: a bus coupleable to a main memory having stored therein data corresponding to video images to be decoded and also decoded data corresponding to video images that have previously been decoded; a video decoder coupled to the bus for receiving encoded video images and for outputting data for displaying the decoded video images on a display device, the decoder configured to receive data from the main memory corresponding to at least one previously decoded video image and to a current video image to be decoded and outputting decoded data corresponding to a current video image to be displayed, the current video image to be displayed adapted to be stored in the main memory; a microprocessor system configured to be coupled to the main memory, the microprocessor system for storing non-image data in and retrieving non-image data from the main memory; and an arbiter circuit coupled to both the microprocessor system and the video decoder for controlling the access to said main memory by the video decoder and the microprocessor.