1. A method for processing video data within a video data processing path of a processing unit, the method comprising: receiving a set of instructions for processing video data stored in a local register file; extracting one or more source operands from the video data stored in the local register file, wherein the one or more source operands are ordered according to an extraction pattern specified by the set of instructions; configuring an arithmetic logic unit within the processing unit based on the size of the one or more source operands; and performing, within the arithmetic logic unit, one or more arithmetic operations specified by the set of instructions on the one or more source operands to generate a set of intermediate results, wherein the set of intermediate results are used to generate a set of final results of processing the video data stored in the local register file.