To provide an image change detector capable of exactly detecting fade change included in image information to be encoded in the encoding by an MPEG system.

The image change detector is provided with an in-field distributed value detecting part 19 to detect each in-field distributed value in each field image, an in-field average DC level detecting part 16 to detect each in-field average DC level in each field image and a host CPU 3 to detect presence/ absence of generation of the fade change, based on change of the detected in-field distributed values and change of the detected in-field average DC levels.