Patent ID: 8781300

Claim:
A digital video recorder, comprising: a memory to store computer instructions; and a controller circuit coupled with the memory, wherein the controller circuit, responsive to executing the computer instructions, performs operations comprising: recording video content supplied by a media communication system; establishing a threshold for utilization of a memory resource of the digital video recorder, wherein the threshold is less than a capacity of the memory resource; detecting a utilization of the memory resource that exceeds the threshold; analyzing stored media files to identify candidate media files for removal from the memory resource based on a last time period that each of the stored media files was presented by the digital video recorder; determining a mitigation option that includes removal of at least one of the identified candidate media files from the memory resource; generating a notice describing the utilization of the memory resource responsive to the detecting of the utilization of the memory resource exceeding the threshold, wherein the notice includes the mitigation option; identifying a communication identifier associated with a portable communication device; transmitting the notice over a wireless network to the portable communication device according to the identified communication identifier, wherein the notice is not provided to any device with a wired connection to the digital video recorder; and receiving a response message from the portable communication device that includes instructions to manage the memory resource of the digital video recorder.