Patent ID: 8688859

Claim:
A system for delivering content comprising: a first data center for receiving and optimizing the content and having a plurality of transcoding resources; a second data center at a different geographic location than the first data center, the second data center having a plurality of transcoding resources; and a decision engine coupled to the data center for scheduling and queueing the content for delivery to a service provider and for selecting one of the plurality of transcoding resources to utilize to transcode the content, where the decision engine includes a processor for determining a priority value, an affinity value based on a preference of a transcoder, and a time to transfer the content to an input of the first data center and the second data center, wherein the priority value is determined by a value associated with an owner of the content that is adjusted based on a relative priority of a specific content source, a time required to process the content, a time that the processed content is due at the service provider, a time required to transfer the content to and from the selected transcoding resource, and a current time.