Patent ID: 8060648

Claim:
A method of supporting on-demand playback of a program comprising: segmenting at least a portion of the program into a sequence of data chunks that must be played serially in an order specified by the sequence to properly playback the program; storing the data chunks on at least two storage mediums associated with devices connected to a network of a playback device used to playback the program; serially instigating playback of each of the data chunks on the playback device by instructing delivery of the data chunks to the playback device, wherein at least a portion of the data chunks scheduled earlier in the sequence are delivered to the playback device to begin playback prior to at least a portion of the data chunks scheduled later in the sequence being delivered to the playback device; and limiting usage of a certain amount of a greater amount of storage available on the devices to storing the data chunks based on contractual commitments specified in contracts of customers associated with the devices.