Method and system having collaborative network media appliances utilizing prioritized local storage of recommended content

摘要

A collaborative system for more efficiently viewing streamed content in a time shifted manner utilizes collaborative home set-top box (STB) and a cloud component (the cloud STB) and a receiving device, such as an antenna or cable component, all cooperatively shared among a community of users. The cloud STB may further comprise a network accessible distributed part and/or a cross licensed portion of other home STBs. The home STB may be connected to the cloud STB and other home STBs over any local or wide area network topology infrastructure, such as the Internet. A group of home STBs may be cross licensed to each other within a community of users sharing the same viewing rights to a collaboratively copy content retained either in the system or among a plurality of shared user systems. Various network infrastructure configurations and streaming techniques, including unicast, multicast, and upstream and downstream collaborative streaming, are proposed to optimize network bandwidth efficiency and increase viewing options.

主权项

1. A system comprising:
A) a cloud storage server comprising a network interface for receiving into an associated network accessible memory data representing a plurality of content objects; and B) a plurality of viewer device processes operably coupled over a network to the cloud storage server and the network accessible memory, each of the plurality of viewer device processes having associated therewith a viewer channel in which content objects are ranked according to a viewer's emotional motivation to select such content objects; C) memory associated with each of the plurality of viewer device processes for storing content objects associated with a respective viewer channel, wherein a content object having a higher threshold rank within the viewer channel associated with the viewer device process are stored in local portion of memory associated with the viewer device process; and wherein a content object having a lower threshold rank within the viewer channel associated with the viewer device process are stored in a back-up storage portion of memory associated with the viewer device process.