A media processing framework includes multiple media processing paths. At least one of the media processing paths includes a media processing pipeline which is in-process with respect to an application which interacts with the media processing pipeline. At least one other of the media processing paths includes a media processing pipeline which is out-of-process with respect to the application. The application can specify a custom plug-in presenter module to be set in either the in-process media processing pipeline or the out-of-process media processing pipeline. The application need not be “aware” of the pipeline that is being used, whether the pipeline is in-process or out-of-process, or the security level that is applied to the media processing pipeline. Both the in-process and the out-of-process media processing pipelines can supply media information to a presentation processor, such as a compositing engine.