Patent ID: 7584497

Claim:
A method of resolving schedule conflicts affecting a client device that employs virtual tuner functionality, comprising: receiving, at an operations center, from the client device, scheduling instructions to create a schedule to record plural media programs; establishing a schedule for the client device to receive for recording the plural media programs at the client device by receiving transmission of the plural media programs from the operations center over a communication channel at a specified timing, wherein the schedule specifies that the plural media programs will be transmitted over the network in a specified first format version to the client device at the specified timing for recording at the client device; identifying at least one conflict in the schedule caused by at least one bandwidth event by taking into account whether an amount of bandwidth to be consumed by each of said plural media programs in the schedule would exceed a total amount of bandwidth available to the client device to receive the plural media programs over the communication channel; as a result of identifying the at least one conflict in the schedule, determining from a media program guide source that a second format version of one or more of the media programs is available to be transmitted to the client device for recording at the specified timing, wherein the second format version of the one or more media programs will consume a lower amount of bandwidth of the communication channel than the specified first format version of the media program; enumerating at least one solution to the at least one conflict, wherein the solution includes replacing one or more of the media programs scheduled to be received over the over the communication channel for recording in the specified first format version with the one or more media programs in the second format version that consumes a lower amount of the bandwidth of the communication channel than the specified first format version; and resolving said at least one conflict based on said at least one solution.