What was the exception with Breezebrowser? Please explain. By the way, I think Breezebrowser Pro is still available for purchase.
Breezebrowser was sort of a shell, an improved interface. It used the Caon's own RAW engine underneath. You had to have the Canon software installed for BB to work. I see it's is still available, but I'm not sure it has worked quite the same way for a long time. It pre-dated Canon's DPP for instance. I notice that it now supports other brands, so this whole idea of using the Canon installed engine is may be gone.
That said, if you read about "Combined conversion" which is only available for Canon cameras here;
http://www.breezesys.com/BreezeBrowser/features.htm this may hint at it still using the Canon engine in conjunction with whatever it is using for the other brands.
I kept using BB for many years as it was (for many years) the ONLY raw tool (other than Canon's own) that would read the extreme white balance setting we use in a converted IR camera. Back then if you opened one of these up in LR or whatever, the WB would get cut off at the limits of the converter and you'd end up with an all red image.
