Methods of processing video are presented to generate signatures for motion segmented regions over two or more frames. Two frames are differenced using an adaptive threshold to generate a two-frame difference image. The adaptive threshold is based on a motion histogram analysis which may vary according to motion history data. Also, a count of pixels is determined in image regions of the motion adapted two-frame difference image which identifies when the count is not within a threshold range to modify the motion adaptive threshold. A motion history image is created from the two-frame difference image. The motion history image is segmented to generate one or more motion segmented regions and a descriptor and a signature are generated for a selected motion segmented region.