1. A method for image processing, the method comprising: detecting within a programmable surveillance video camera one or more objects in a video signal based on an object mask generated from said video signal; generating within said programmable surveillance video camera a textual representation of at least a portion of said video signal by utilizing a description definition language (DDL) to indicate characteristics of said detected one or more objects, wherein said object mask is generated based on a detection field value generated for each pixel in at least a portion of said video signal by comparing a first observation field and a second observation field associated with each of said pixels; and generating said second observation field associated with each of said pixels based on a temporal difference between a previous value of said first observation field and a factored (N) current value of said first observation field for each of said pixels.