`This body of work by Thomas Wiegand and Bernd Girod has already proved to have an exceptional degree of influence in the video technology community ... As the community has grown to appreciate the long-term memory feature, it has become an embraced part of the conventional wisdom. When the ITU-T launched an initial design for a next-generation `H.26L' video coding algorithm beyond the capabilities of today's standards, Wiegand's long-term memory idea was in it from the very beginning. The tide has turned. What once seemed like the strange and wasteful idea of requiring storage and searching of extra old pictures is becoming the accepted practice - indeed it is the previous practice of throwing away the old decoded pictures that has started to seem wasteful.' From the foreword by Gary J. Sullivan (ITU-T/SG16 & MPEG Video Chairman)
