Patent ID: 8588590

Claim:
A method, comprising: receiving a request to record a contiguous television program, the request being initiated by a local recording system; sending a message to a remote system for causing storage of a representation of at least a portion of the contiguous television program in the remote system in response to the message; causing storage of the representation of the at least a portion of the contiguous television program in the remote system; outputting an indication of the contiguous television program on a list of recorded programs, the indication of the contiguous television program on the list of recorded programs being configured to be output on an integrated display associated with the local recording system; receiving a request to play back the contiguous television program via selection of the indication from the list, the request to play back the contiguous television program being initiated by the local recording system; outputting at least a first portion of the contiguous television program to the local recording system for display on the integrated display, while at least part of the representation of the at least a portion of the contiguous television program is being stored in the remote system, wherein a representation of the first portion of the contiguous television program is stored on the local recording system, the first portion being temporally shorter than a length of the contiguous television program; outputting at least a second portion of the contiguous television program to the local recording system for display on the integrated display, after outputting the first portion of the contiguous television program; in response to receiving a transfer request, allowing transfer of the entire contiguous television program to the local recording system, the complete version of the contiguous television program including at least the first portion of the contiguous television program and the second portion of the contiguous television program; allowing the storage of the entire contiguous television program by the local recording system; and causing deletion of the representation of the at least a portion of the contiguous television program in the remote system, in response to receiving a request to delete the contiguous television program from the local recording system.