In general, techniques are described for implementing a 32-point discrete cosine transform (DCT) that is capable of applying multiple DCTs of different sizes. For example, an apparatus comprising a 32-point discrete cosine transform of type II (DCT-II) unit may implement the techniques of this disclosure. The 32-point DCT-II unit performs these DCTs-II of different sizes to transform data from a spatial to a frequency domain. The 32-point DCT-II unit includes an 16-point DCT-II unit that performs one of the DCTs-II of size 16 and at least one 8-point DCT-II unit that performs one of the DCTs-II of size 8. The 16-point DCT-II unit includes another 8-point DCT-II unit. The 16-point DCT-II unit also comprises at least one 4-point DCTs-II unit. Two or more of these DCTs-II units may concurrently perform DCTs-II of different sizes to various portions of the content data.