The SPIHT (set partitioning in hierarchical trees) algorithm by Said and Pearlman (see IEEE Trans. on Circuits and Systems for Video Technology, no.6, p.243-250, 1996) is known to have produced some of the best results in still image coding. It is a fully embedded wavelet coding algorithm with precise rate control and low complexity. We present an application of the SPIHT algorithm to video sequences, using three-dimensional (3D) wavelet decompositions and 3D spatio-temporal dependence trees. A full 3D-SPIHT encoder/decoder is implemented in software and is compared against MPEG-2 in parallel simulations. Although there is no motion estimation or compensation in the 3D SPIHT, it performs measurably and visually better than MPEG-2, which employs complicated motion estimation and compensation.