Scene change detection in encrypted video bit streams

In this paper, a novel method to detect scene changes in encrypted video streams is presented. Typically, in IPTV systems, the media stream is transmitted in encrypted form, and therefore the only available information to determine the scene changes are the packet headers which transport the video signal. Thus, the proposed method estimates the size and the type of each picture of the video sequence by extracting information from the packet headers. Then, based on the GOP structure, a set of rules are determined to predict changes of frame sizes which are indicative of scene changes in the video sequences. Furthermore, the application of the proposed method in the recently standardized ITU-T Recommendation P.1201.2 for no-reference audio-visual quality assessment for IPTV-grade services is presented to highlight how such method could be deployed. Finally, the proposed method is evaluated on a large set of video databases to demonstrate the validity of the proposed method.