Rovi Technologies Corporation

Microsoft Technology Licensing, LLC

Telefonaktiebolaget Lm Ericsson (publ)

Mark B Tozer

Peter John Potrebic

Prashant K Jha

Jeffery C Truong

Yvonne N Ellefson

Aparna Varanasi

Keith Okabe

Hugh Hitchens

Rabih Filfili

Saul Wyner

Patrick Egloff

Bharath Shetty

Tim Lett

Swapnesh Chaubal

Techniques are described to provide content access. In an implementation, a determination is made at a client that a high-definition channel has content that matches content provided by a standard-definition channel. Access is provided to the content via the high-definition channel and access is restricted to the content via the standard-definition channel up the client is capable of outputting the content and high definition.

Content access

A scheduler is used to identify a schedule conflict that affects a client device receiving multiple media programs over a network. The scheduler is associated with the client device or a head-end source from which the programs are received. The scheduler accesses a schedule, which specifies a scheduled time at which multiple media programs are to be received by the client device. The scheduler obtains the actual bitrate to be consumed by each of the media programs as they are to be streamed to the client device. Based at least in part on the bitrates obtained for each of the media programs, the scheduler identifies a conflict that prevents at least one of the media programs from being streamed to the client device over the network. The scheduler enumerates at least one solution to the conflict to thereby resolve the conflict.

Bandwidth aware digital video recording (DVR) scheduling

A server for network media program restart receives a request from a client device to restart a media program that is configured as being enabled for network media program restart subject to a set of one or more restrictions. Responsive to determining that a currently airing restriction is configured that allows the media program to be played by the client device only when that media program is currently airing in a locale of the client device and will become unavailable for viewing after a predefined amount of time has elapsed after the currently airing media program ends, the server transmits the media program to the client device for playback only responsive to a determination that at the time of the request the media program is currently airing in the locale of the client device and only when the predefined amount of time has not elapsed.

Network media program restart

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Lake Mary, FL, United States of America

Mark B Tozer