---
title: 'What is shot detection?'
description: 'Shot detection finds the points in a video where one camera shot ends and the next shot starts.'
url: 'https://videocontextapi.com/glossary/shot-detection/'
---

# Shot detection

> Shot detection, also called shot boundary detection, is the process that finds each point in a video where one continuous camera shot ends and the next shot starts, including hard cuts, fades, and dissolves.

## Why shots are the basic unit

A shot is the smallest unit that an editor works with. Scenes, chapters, templates, and style metrics such as the average shot length all start from shot boundaries.

## Types of transition

- **Hard cut.** The picture changes in one frame.
- **Fade.** The picture goes to or from a solid colour.
- **Dissolve.** Two shots blend over several frames.

Video Context detects shots as the first step of every analysis. See [templates](/video-template-api/) and [style transfer](/video-style-transfer-api/).

Related terms: https://videocontextapi.com/glossary/video-understanding/, https://videocontextapi.com/glossary/video-context/