Patent ID: 8904445

Claim:
A method to manage network bandwidth allocation in a media delivery environment, the method comprising: monitoring bandwidth usage for a subscriber site; based on the monitored bandwidth usage, detecting insufficient bandwidth available to deliver requested media to a first media receiver at the subscriber site; determining whether the insufficient bandwidth occurrence is to occur at least at one of (1) a subscriber site interface to a wide area network, and (2) at a network interface within the subscriber site between the first media receiver and a digital video recorder; based on determining where the insufficient bandwidth is to occur, presenting a first user-selectable option via the first media receiver to allocate bandwidth from delivery of second media to the subscriber site to delivery of the requested media to the first media receiver; receiving a first user selection of the first user-selectable option; and implementing the selected first user-selectable option by changing the second media to a media quality that is lower than a higher media quality previously selected for the second media and allocating a portion of the bandwidth previously used for delivery of the second media to delivery of the requested media.