Patent ID: 8739230

Claim:
A viewing system having a plurality of client devices to output content streamed from a content provider over a communication network comprising: a first client device in the viewing system to determine whether a second client device in the viewing system is accessible as a manager client device to provide a set of manager functions to manage consumption of the content by the first client device; when the second client device is not accessible, the first client device to assume a role of a limited manager client device for the viewing system until a third client device that is different from the first client device and the second client device and that is capable of performing the set of manager functions is determined to be available, the first client device to provide a subset of manager functions to manage consumption of the content by the plurality of client devices, wherein the limited manager client device utilizes tokens among the plurality of client devices to arbitrate bandwidth allocated by the content provider for the viewing system by allocating a portion of the bandwidth for an authorized client device to output the content, in which the viewing system includes different manager functionality at different times based at least in part on the first and second client devices such that the viewing system does not include functionality of storing the content when managed by the first client device but does include the functionality of storing the content when managed by the second client device, wherein the consumption of the content by the plurality of client devices is managed with the tokens based at least in part upon receiving requests for content from one or more client devices of the plurality of client devices.