Efficient shot boundary detection for action movies using blockwise motion-based features

Conventional shot boundary detection (SBD) algorithms have limitations in handling video data that contain fast illumination changes or rapid motions of objects and background. This paper presents a SBD algorithm that is efficient for action movies/videos. A measure of discontinuity in camera and object/background motion is proposed for SBD based on the combination of two motion features: the modified displaced frame difference (DFD) and the blockwise motion similarity. A variant of the block matching algorithm (BMA) is developed for the former and we find that it is a robust SBD feature for fast motion video. The latter measures the similarity of motion directions of small local region such as macroblock (MB). Experimental results with seven test action movies show the effectiveness of the proposed algorithm. The proposed features can be easily applied to compressed video.