Patent ID: 7634171
Filing Date: 2009-12-15
Classification: H04N

Abstract:
1. A personal video recorder system comprising: a general-purpose computer having a host processor and memory; and at least one video recorder card implemented in the general-purpose computer, the video recorder card in the computer being configured to tune a receiver using a tuner to a particular channel or a frequency carrying digitally streamed video content comprising of intra-frames (I-frames) and predictive frames (P-frames), receive and scramble for storage the video content and record the scrambled video content into the memory in a scrambled form that cannot be perceptibly displayed by the general-purpose computer to prevent unauthorized distribution of the video content, the video recorder card being further configured to perform steps comprising: retrieve and descramble the video content from the memory and output the descrambled video content for playback to a display separate from the general-purpose computer, wherein the video recorder card comprises: store a playlist on the memory, wherein the playlist comprises a list of content stored on the memory and data for an electronic program guide comprising upcoming content to be broadcast at a later date, wherein the playlist is partially encrypted such that the list of content stored on the memory is encrypted and the data for the electronic program guide is not encrypted, wherein the content scrambler and the address scrambler are implemented as a single unit that employs a same encryption algorithm.