We describe a new approach to the detection and classification of scene breaks in video sequences. Our method can detect and classify a variety of scene breaks, including cuts, fades, dissolves and wipes, even in sequences involving significant motion. We detect the appearance of intensity edges that are distant from edges in the previous frame. A global motion computation is used to handle camera or object motion. The algorithms we propose withstand compression artifacts such as those introduced by JPEG and MPEG, even at very high compression rates. Experimental evidence demonstrates that our method can detect and classify scene breaks that are difficult to detect with previous approaches. An initial implementation runs at approximately 2 frames per second on a Sun workstation.