The bit rate control algorithm which is capable of handing scene change is proposed. In MPEG-2 TM5, block variance is used to measure block activity. But block variance is not consistent with human visual system and does not differenciate the distribution of pixel values within the block. In target bit allocation process of TM5, global complexity, obtained by results of previous coded pictures, is used. Since I pictures are spaced relatively far apart, their complexity estimate is not very accurate. In the proposed algorithm local variance is used to measure block activity and detect scene change. Local variance, using deviation from the mean of neighboring pixels, well represents the distribution of pixel values within the block. If scene change is detected, the local variance information is used for target bit allocation process. Allocating target bits for I picture, the average local variance difference between previous and current I picture is considered. The experimental results show that the proposed algorithm can detect scene change very precisely and gives better picture quality and higher PSNR values than MPEG-2 TM5.