Patent ID: 8224982

Claim:
An apparatus operable to communicate programs over networks, comprising: a receiver operable to receive a user selection of a program; a network formatter operable to: format the selected program into information compatible with a communication format used by a network, and transmit the formatted program onto the network; and a network performance assessor having an input/output and a processing unit, the network performance assessor operable to: receive performance information corresponding to a total capacity utilization of the network, assess performance of the network by comparing the total capacity utilization with a peak capacity of the network, determine an occurrence of a bandwidth demand in response to the total capacity utilization comparison, the bandwidth demand being above a variable threshold on the network caused by network utilization of an endpoint device, wherein the endpoint device is not operable to decode a signal to generate the program, and cause the network formatter, prior to formatting and transmitting a first part of the program, to modify the first part of the program from a first programming format to a second programming format to reduce capacity utilization on the network the network performance assessor further operable to: determine the availability of additional capacity on the network, and cause the network formatter, prior to formatting and transmitting a second part of the program, to modify the second part of the program from the second programming format to a third programming format to increase capacity utilization on the network.