METHOD AND APPARATUS FOR SECURE TRANSFER OF PREVIOUSLY BROADCASTED CONTENT

摘要

A method and apparatus for secure transfer of previously broadcasted content enables the secure transfer of previously broadcasted content between DVRs on a computer network: A DVR user is presented with a user interface for requesting the previously broadcasted content. The service provider vatidates the request by inspecting data associated with the user to determine if the user should be allowed to retrieve the previonsly broadcasted content . The service provider indentifies one or more DVRs on a computer network that currently have the previously broadcasted content and filters them according to a number of factors, including bandwidth, to create a pool of DVRs.The service provider initiates the transfer by either requesting each DVR in the pool to begin transfering the previously broadcasted content to the requesting DVR, or by directly requesting the DVR to retrieve the content from the pool of DVRs.