Patent ID: 8719878

Claim:
A method of distributing a video to a customer device, comprising: converting the video to a protected form, wherein the video comprises a plurality of video frames at a pixel size defined by a first number of horizontal pixels and a second number of vertical pixels, wherein converting the video to a protected form comprises: converting the plurality of video frames to a plurality of low resolution video frames, wherein each of the plurality of low resolution video frames has a size that is the same as the pixel size of the plurality of video frames, and wherein each of the plurality of low resolution video frames comprises one of the plurality of video frames at a fraction of the pixel size and a single color in the area outside of the one of the plurality of video frames at the fraction of the pixel size, and encoding the plurality of low resolution video frames; transmitting the video in the protected form to the customer device, wherein the customer device is configured to: record the video in the protected form in which it is transmitted, decode the encoded plurality of low resolution video frames, increase the size of the decoded plurality of video frames from the fraction of the pixel size to the pixel size, and output the video for playback at the pixel size; receiving video playback information from the customer device at a central controller system; and billing for output of the video for playback at the pixel size by the customer device.