Patent ID: 7626521

Claim:
A decoding method, comprising: providing shader functionality configurable with a plurality of instruction sets to decode a video stream coded based on at least one of a plurality of different coding methods; loading the shader functionality having one of the plurality of instruction sets to a variable length decoding (VLD) unit of a software programmable core graphics processing unit for execution thereof, the VLD unit capable of performing the shader functionality, wherein loading further comprises initializing the VLD unit, wherein the decoding is accomplished within the context of graphics processing unit programming, with a hardware implementation in a graphics processing unit data path and additional hardware for automatic management of a bitstream buffer, and wherein the plurality of coding methods comprise two or more of context-adaptive binary arithmetic coding (CABAC), context-adaptive variable length coding (CAVLC). Exponential (EXP)-Golomb, Motion Pictures Expert Group (MPEG-2), and VC-1, wherein initializing further comprises: initializing at least one of a context memory array, registers, context tables, and a decoding engine; updating fields of the registers responsive to decoding operations or initializing fields of the registers, wherein updating comprises moving values between the registers and the context memory array; and reading from the context memory array; and decoding the video stream by executing the shader functionality on the VLD unit.