A new method for detecting shot boundaries in video sequences using metrics based on information theory is proposed. The method relies on the mutual information and the joint entropy between frames and can detect cuts, fade-ins and fade-outs. The detection technique was tested on TV video sequences having different types of shots and significant object and camera motion inside the shots. It was favorably compared to other recently proposed shot cut detection techniques. The method is proven to detect both fades and abrupt cuts very effectively.