Patent ID: 8201194

Claim:
A personal recording and playback system ( 10 ) comprising: a receiving means ( 19 , 21 ) for receiving streaming audio/visual input from at least one of broadcast radio, broadcast TV stations, cable TV systems, satellite TV systems, the Internet, and other wide-area networks; a means ( 21 ) for connecting to wide area networks including the Internet and receiving streaming audio or audio/visual input; a storage means ( 36 ) for storing the received streaming audio or audio/visual input; a user input means ( 12 ) for inputting user commands to the recording/playback system ( 10 ); a user output means ( 14 ) for outputting the audio or audio/visual input; a recording means ( 32 ) for transparently: tracking audio or audio/visual preferences of a user of the system ( 10 ); maintaining a user profile database ( 34 ) for storing and maintaining user preferences; receiving multiple audio or audio/visual streams via the receiving means ( 19 , 21 ) and storing the received multiple audio or audio/visual streams on the storage means ( 36 ) in the background; and, maintaining an audio or audio/visual recording collection ( 48 , 50 ) according to the user preferences by analyzing the received audio/visual streams; and a content analysis means ( 56 ) for examining and improving a quality of an audio or audio/visual stream stored in the recording collection and identifying at least one of: a profile of the stream, and voice over sections of the stream, degraded sections of the stream, and commercial detection, wherein the content analysis means ( 56 ) improves the quality of the audio or audio/visual stream stored in the recording collection by comparing a title in the audio or audio/visual recording collection ( 48 , 50 ) to a title stored in a real time file system or a common memory and either: (i) replacing a title in the audio or audio/visual recording collection ( 48 , 50 ) with a title stored in the real time file system or the common memory or (ii) replacing portions of the title in the audio or audio/visual recording collection in order to remove voice over portions or defects of any kind or commercials, and wherein the operation of the content analysis means and replacing of either the said title (i), or portion of the title (ii), in the audio or audio/visual recording collection, is performed without the user being required to have previously listened to, or listened to and/or watched, the said title (i) or portions of the title (ii).