A method for detecting a video signal that represents an image sequence and exhibits linewise repeated video data comprises selecting a plurality of line groups each having a first, a second and a third line, which originate from two consecutive fields in the case of a field sequence and from one field in the case of a frame sequence. The method determines for each line group a first line-distance measure for a difference between video contents of the first and second lines and a second line-distance measure for a difference between video contents of the second and third lines. The method then interprets the first and second line-distance measures with regard to the presence of a significant difference between these line-distance measures.