Scene change detection using DC coefficients

We propose an algorithm to detect shot transitions in MPEG video data in the compressed domain. The algorithm is based on the conventional solution, where energy histograms of DC (discrete cosine) coefficients are used to calculate the distance between consecutive I/P frames, and the DC coefficients of the P-frames are obtained by frame conversion. We enhance the result by using the ratio between two sliding windows to attenuate the low-pass filtered frame distance, and this results in the amplification of the transitional regions. The advantage of our method is that it achieves high detection rates with low computational complexity. The algorithm is equally applicable in detecting sharp transitions and dissolved transitions.