The present invention discloses a temporal compressor and decompressor for sequences of images. The compressor includes an interface for receiving the sequence of images. A spatial compressor generates spatially compressed image fields from the sequence of images, a data compression decoder generates data decompressed image fields from the spatially compressed image fields, a temporal processor generates temporal processed image fields from the data decompressed image fields, a data compressor encoder generates data compressed image fields from the temporal processed image fields, and a data formatter generates formatted compressed image fields.