Patent ID: 8538245

Claim:
A recording control apparatus comprising: a receiving unit configured to receive, from each of a plurality of recording apparatuses, recording schedule information set on and available-recording-capacity information of each of the plurality of recording apparatuses, respectively; a determination unit configured to determine a program to be recorded; and a control unit configured to perform control to select one of the recording apparatuses on the basis of the recording schedule information and the available-recording-capacity information received from the plurality of recording apparatuses and to transmit, to the selected recording apparatus, information for scheduling recording of the determined program, wherein the control unit, when a determination is that recordings of a recommended program, the recommended program being determined by the determination unit as a program to be recorded on a basis of user preference information, have been redundantly scheduled on the plurality of recording apparatuses, automatically combines the redundantly scheduled recordings into one recording, by deleting recording schedule setting information for the recommended program for each of the plurality of recording apparatuses on which the recommended program is redundantly scheduled except for a recording apparatus of the plurality of recording apparatuses on which the recommended program is redundantly scheduled having a largest remaining capacity, to obtain information for scheduling recording of the recommended program for transmission to the recording apparatus having the largest remaining capacity.