This paper presents an adaptive method of objects and shadows detection in video streams.Models of background are firstly set up and adaptively updated in Hue Saturation Intensity (HSI)color space to detect motion regions. Then, detection errors are dealt with by motion continuity and velocity consistency. Finally, cast shadows are removed by the generic properties of luminance,chrominance and gradient density. Experimental results and their evaluation are presented to verify the effectiveness of this new method.