Yes, the process of coming up with JPEG was extremely thorough. I recall from a uni lecture that originally multiple working groups were pursuing multiple resea

Yes, the process of coming up with JPEG was extremely thorough. I recall from a uni lecture that originally multiple working groups were pursuing multiple research directions. Then they selected the 2 most promising and focused on those, and eventually the current JPEG codec emerged as winner. They meticulously hand-tuned the quantisation tables too. The process lasted about 6 years (1986-1992). No wonder it's still the most widespread codec. JPEG stands for Joint Photographic Experts Group for a reason!