Is the commercial detection algorithm homegrown or written by someone outside of the channels team? I ask because there’s one channel (NFL Network) where commercial detection consistently doesn’t work due the presence of a consistent sports ticker that runs even during network ads. The only commercials detected are the ones inserted by the local cable company.
Tickers are the kryptonite to commercial detection, unfortunately. The same thing happens on news channels as well as local channels that have weather warnings or school closings.
They persist through commercial breaks, fades, and disrupts everything else commercial detection uses to index commercials.
They are now… but surely there could be strategies to detect commercials even on these channels. Is anyone actively progressing the channel detection algorithm?
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For some values of "actively" 
But it is clear from the commits that Channels has an active interest in improving it.
See https://www.comskip.org/
Latest release version is actually 0.82.012 Feb. 25, 2012
https://www.kaashoek.com/files/readme.txt
https://www.kaashoek.com/files/comskip82_012.zip
Channels DVR uses the 0.82.011 "donator" version.
The only update in 0.82.012 is support for 10-bit video decoders, so not like we're missing anything.
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It's all about that ini file. Sometimes you gotta modify it to crop out the tickers during commercial detection. I've played around that for a while with ESPN channels
I had forgot about this GitHub repository. Maybe it's the one Channels DVR is using.
I don’t know why - dumb luck? - as it sounds like no changes have been made in ages, but commercial detection on nfl replays on nfl network have been working much better in the last week or two.