Abstract: A video abstract is produced from surveillance camera video by retrieving a frame of the video, updating a background frame based at least in part on the retrieved frame, and performing a video division process which includes extracting, if it is determined that the average gray scale value of the retrieved frame exceeds a defined threshold, foreground data from the retrieved frame after conversion of the retrieved frame to a signed data type. The video division process further includes retrieving a next frame of the video produced by the camera, updating the background frame, and repeating the video division process. The producing of the video abstract further includes merging the foreground data with the updated background data after conversion of the foreground data and the updated background data to the signed data type, and generating a video abstract with the merged foreground and background data.