Patent ID: 7505591
Filing Date: 2009-03-17
Classification: H04N

Abstract:
1. A personal video recorder system, comprising: a first tuner configured to receive a first scrambled stream; a second tuner configured to receive a second scrambled stream; a demultiplexer connected to the first and second tuners and configured to receive and demultiplex the first and the second scrambled streams from the first tuner and the second tuner; a storage connected to the demultiplexer; a point of deployment (POD) module connected to the demultiplexer via a POD interface, the POD module configured to descramble a single scrambled stream at a time; a control unit connected to the POD interface and the demultiplexer, the control unit configured to control the POD interface and the demultiplexer so that the second scrambled stream is preferentially descrambled upon receipt, the first scrambled stream is stored in the storage while the second scramble stream is descrambled, and the stored first scrambled stream is automatically retrieved and descrambled only when the demultiplexer does not receive a stream from one of the first and second tuners and when the demultiplexer does not receive another stream from the storage; and a decoder connected to the POD interface and configured to decode the descrambled streams output from the POD.