Abstract: A commercial detection apparatus includes a frame grab thread which acquires frames from an input data stream to be analyzed by a cut detector thread and a filter thread. A commercial detection thread determines whether a commercial has occurred from data created by the cut detector thread and the filter thread stored in a memory. A factor used by the commercial detection thread is whether a black frame has occurred. The input data stream is divided into a plurality of regions and then a maximum and minimum value for a section of these regions is determined and compared to one another. If the maximum and minimum values are close enough, and the maximum value is below a threshold, then the frame is deemed to be black.