A system and method for detecting scene changes in a sequence of video frames utilizing a combination of a plurality of difference metrics including an interframe difference metric, a histogram difference metric and an interframe variance difference metric, as well as adaptive threshold level selection methods to dynamically select appropriate threshold levels for each of the difference metrics. The interframe and histogram difference metrics are used to identify abrupt scene changes and the interframe variance difference metric is used to identify gradual scene changes. The identified gradual and abrupt scene changes are validated by applying a plurality of conditions.