A video is composed of set of shots, where shot is defined as a sequence of consecutive frames captured by one camera without interruption. In video shot transition could be a prompt (hard cut) or gradual (fade, dissolve, and wipe). Shot boundary detection is an essential component of video processing. These boundaries are utilized on many aspect of video processing such as video indexing, and video in demand. In this paper, the authors proposed a new shot boundary detection algorithm. The proposed algorithm detects all type of shot boundaries in a high accuracy. The algorithm is developed based on a global stochastic model for video stream. The proposed stochastic model utilizes the joined characteristic function and consequently the joined momentum to model the video stream. The proposed algorithm is implemented and tested against different types of categorized videos. The proposed algorithm detects cuts fades, dissolves, and wipes transitions. Experimental results show that the algorithm has high performance. The computed precision and recall rates validated its performance.