Patent ID: 11917215
Assignee: ROVI GUIDES, INC.
Field: Audio-visual technology (Electrical engineering)
Classification: CPC H | IPC H

Claim 10:
11. A system comprising:
a server; and
control circuitry configured to:
receive a plurality of requests to record a content item, wherein the plurality of requests are respectively associated with a plurality of user profiles;
identify content consumption histories respectively associated with the plurality of user profiles;
determine, based on the content consumption histories respectively associated with the plurality of user profiles, a plurality of future times that users of the plurality of user profiles are likely to request to access the content item;
generate a shared pool of copies of the content item for the plurality of user profiles by storing, at the server and based on the plurality of requests, a plurality of copies of the content item, wherein a number of the plurality of copies of the content item in the shared pool is a minimum number of copies of the content item determined, based on the plurality of future times, to be sufficient to fulfill requests received from the users of the shared pool to access respective copies of the plurality of copies of the content item in the shared pool at a given time, and the number of the plurality of copies in the shared pool is less than a number of the plurality of received requests;
receive a particular request to record the content item, wherein the particular request is associated with a particular user profile;
identify content consumption history associated with the particular user profile;
determine, based on the identified content consumption history of the particular user profile, a particular future time at which a user of the particular user profile is likely to request to access the content item;
determine whether to refrain from storing an additional copy of the in the shared pool content item based on the particular request by comparing the particular future time to the plurality of future times;
receive a request, associated with the particular user profile, to access the content item; and
in response to receiving the request and determining to refrain from storing the additional copy, cause the content item to be played at a device associated with the particular user profile using one of the plurality of copies of the content item included in the shared pool.