Patent ID: 8276180

Claim:
A system, comprising: at least one server for transcoding or transrating video content for delivery over a wide area network; wherein the at least one server is one of a plurality of distributed servers in the wide area network; wherein the servers that transcode or transrate the video content are positioned at locations different from a location of a source of the video content; wherein the system operates such that the video content is time-shifted as a function of a time zone in which a client receiving the video content is located; wherein the system operates such that at least one aspect of the delivery relates to what advertisement content to deliver based on a particular audience and transmission medium, such that a first advertisement is delivered with the video content for receipt by a regional audience via a broadcast, the first advertisement targeted towards the regional audience reached by a broadcast antenna, and a second advertisement is delivered with the video content instead of the first advertisement for receipt by a worldwide audience via the wide area network, the second advertisement targeted towards the worldwide audience reached by the wide area network; wherein at least one intermediate server distributes different portions of the video content of a given source received over a predetermined period of time to different additional servers according to a portion of the predetermined period of time in which each of the portions of the video content were received, to distribute network traffic caused by multiple clients requesting the video content without causing duplication of storage, by: identifying a first portion of the video content of the given source received over a first portion of the predetermined period of time; delivering the identified first portion of the video content to a first one of the additional servers; identifying a second portion of the video content of the given source received over a second portion of the predetermined period of time, the second portion of the predetermined period of time different from the first portion of the predetermined period of time; and delivering the identified second portion of the video content to a second one of the additional servers.