>> You mean the list of DCE-supported algorithms presented in the documents
>> that have been published so far may not be complete and the DCE may support
>> more algorithms, including such that are useful for A/V encoding or decoding?

> Yes

So you think that Freescale conceals what the DCE really can do at this point in time when you can already purchase the hardware?

> until we have a full understanding of all that this unit can do, we
> can not count out the possibility that it could aid in conventional
> encoding and decoding applications.

I don't understand. What you mean "conventional encoding and decoding applications"? Encoding/decoding means using a specific (set of) algorithm(s) to transform a bitstream into another bitstream under certain rules. In case of the DCE, algorithms mentioned specifically by Freescale have been implemented in hardware to accelerate the transformation. What's "conventional" about specific algorithms?

> What interests me more is the possibility that new methods,
> better suited to this component, might be created.

Huh? You mean that somebody should invent A/V codecs that use algorithms that the DCE implements, establish those new codecs as a standard and make the world use those codecs, so that subsequently the DCE could be used for decoding/encoding A/V data? Sounds like a plan ...not ;-) Thing is that the algorithms implemented by the DCE may not be suited for encoding of A/V data. Refer to:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/DEFLATE
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gzip
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zlib
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Base64

As you can see, the first 3 are essentially just applications of LZ77 and Huffman. All of them, i.e. LZ77, Huffman and Base64, are *lossless* encoding algorithms. Thus, I can only repeat that I can't see where A/V encoding or decoding could fit here.