Patent ID: 8259861

Claim:
A method for providing bandwidth adjustment, the method comprising: receiving a single input data stream providing media content, the input data stream having an attribute and pre-encoded to define a first stream having a first bit rate and a second stream having a second bit rate; determining the attribute by cross referencing data accompanying the input data stream with an electronic programming guide, the attribute being a bandwidth adjustment attribute determined by decoding information included in the electronic programming guide to describe the media content provided by the input data stream; producing a first adjusted data stream by pruning the input data stream to obtain the first bit rate based on the attribute, the pre-encoded first bit rate and a first preference; producing a second adjusted data stream by pruning the input data stream to obtain the second bit rate based on the attribute and the pre-encoded second bit rate, the second adjusted data stream corresponding to the same input data stream and the same media content, but with a second adjusted bandwidth, the second adjusted bandwidth different from a first adjusted bandwidth of the first adjusted data stream; providing the first adjusted data stream to a first device; and providing the second adjusted data stream to a second device while the first adjusted data stream is being provided to the first device.