Importance

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Abstract

The invention manages resources and resolve conflicts when locally recording multimedia assets from a variety of sources in multimedia delivery systems. Local and system resources such as storage, tuners, and bandwidth are considered when alternative sources for assets are available (e.g., VOD). Rather than record assets locally, if equivalent assets are available via alternative sources, the recordings are deferred and a pointer to the equivalent asset is stored in lieu of the asset itself. When a user selects a multimedia asset for playback, an “on demand” or alternative source session is started for the asset associated with the pointer. Before the expiration date of the alternative source equivalent of the multimedia asset, it may be downloaded and recorded locally. The system may automatically determine based on various factors, such as transmission bandwidth, latency, and DRM, whether to store assets or pointers.

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First Claim