Removing commercials

[dilly]

I have a fairly not-so-new (1996) VCR that can "remove" commercials - after it records it looks through the tape and marks where commercials are, and fastforwards through them. It works quite well considering how old the VCR is.

I was wondering if there is any possibility of a digital equivalent of this (doing it on a computer)? Does anyone know how this is accomplished, even on the vcr?

[dar1us]

I am not sure, but in the UK - on some terrestrial channels (the ones that actually have adverts) - there is a little black and white flickery box in the top right corner of the screen that does stuff 30 seconds prior to the adverts.