Picture buffering for prediction references and display

hypothetical decoder (5) for hypothetically decoding a stream of coded images, and said hypothetical decoder (5) a frame buffer (5.2) comprising for temporarily storing reference pictures and pictures to be reordered, characterized in that said hypothetical decoder (5) is configured to receive an encoder (1) an attribute defining a number of pictures arranged to be stored temporarily that is sufficient to recover the output order of images of the image buffer (5.2) when pictures are input to temporarily store them in decoding order, and said hypothetical decoder (5) the following comprising: a processing block to do the following before inserting a newly decoded in the buffer (5.2) image - examine whether the newly decoded picture can be inserted into the buffer (5.2) without removing any other image of said memoriaintermedia (5.2), - from the review, select an image to remove it from the buffer (5.2), when the image newly decoded can not be inserted in the buffer (5.2) without removing any other image of said buffer (5.2) - remove the selected image from the buffer (5.2).