Использование кодировки длин серий:
import numpy as NP
signal = NP.array([4,5,6,7,3,4,3,5,5,5,5,3,4,2,8,9,0,1,2,8,8,8,0,9,1,3])
px, = NP.where(NP.ediff1d(signal) != 0)
px = NP.r_[(0, px+1, [len(signal)])]
# collect the run-lengths for each unique item in the signal
rx = [ (m, n, signal[m]) for (m, n) in zip(px[:-1], px[1:]) if (n - m) > 1 ]
# get longest:
rx2 = [ (b-a, c) for (a, b, c) in rx ]
rx2.sort(reverse=True)
# returns: [(4, 5), (3, 8)], ie, '5' occurs 4 times consecutively, '8' occurs 3 times consecutively