A system and method for digital content player with secure processing vault is presented. A system uses an attached processing unit and a local storage area as a hardware-based secure processing vault. The secure processing vault calculates a title key based upon stored device keys, and decrypts encrypted/encoded digital content using the calculated title key. The decryption process results in encoded digital content, which remains within the secure processing vault until the secure processing vault decodes the encoded digital content. The decoded digital content is then passed to a main processing unit or a graphics card for further processing. In one embodiment, a secure processing vault may process multiple threads in parallel. In another embodiment, multiple secure processing vaults may be used to process a single, highly computational thread.