1. A method comprising: first, providing a video processing apparatus comprising: an event detection system, including an input to receive input video information, and an event detection device including hardware, the event detection device configured to analyze the input video information and to detect an event based on one or more rules applied to the analyzed video information; and an application programming interface framework coupled to the event detection device to permit a separately generated program to interact with the event detection device to define the one or more rules for the event detection device; and then, separately providing a user interface configured to permit access by a user to rule language or primitive definitions to create new rules for the event detection device, and configured to provide to the event detection device via the application programming interface the new rules as the one or more rules, wherein the user interface is configured to provide new rules that do not previously exits within the event detection system and thereby provide new functionality to the event detection system.