Patent ID: 7245817

Claim:
A method for providing a multimedia transfer service comprising: transporting a multimedia transfer device to a user's home, the multimedia transfer device comprising, a housing; a plurality of media readers disposed adjacent one another within the housing; a central processing unit in electrical communication with the plurality of media readers and disposed within the housing; an encoder module in electrical communication with the central processing unit and disposed within the housing and configured to encode data read by said media readers in a specified encoding format; and a data communication interface in electrical communication with the central processing unit and disposed within the housing and configured to copy said encoded data to a media storage and playback apparatus, said user having a collection of multimedia content stored on physical media; using said multimedia transfer device to transfer said multimedia content from said physical media to a mass storage device at said user's home; and monitoring the efficiency with which said multimedia content is transferred from said physical media to said mass storage device, wherein efficiency is determined by statistical analysis of performance parameters gathered during said transfer, and wherein said performance parameters include disc processing rate, transfer apparatus duty cycle, and a length of time one or more individual drives of said transfer apparatus are empty.