This paper starts from a state-of-the-art efficient approach to real-time video object segmentation in the MPEG domain. It then describes several techniques to extend the algorithm's compelling behavior to a more generic set of situations. These are focused on the management of intra-coded macroblocks, the exploitation of objects motion coherence, the integrated use of color information and an approach to discriminate objects from multimodal background (e.g., water, flames), always under camera motion conditions. Results evaluation is presented over a ground truth generated with the help of chroma studio in order to reproduce almost real sequences in a controlled way.