Patent ID: 7669222

Claim:
A method comprising: pooling content consumption resources in a viewing system having a plurality of client devices, wherein: the pooled resources are portioned via a plurality of virtual tuners, each of which representing an ability to consume a single corresponding stream of content from a content provider over a communication network; and each client device of said plurality of client devices being configured to schedule consumption of the content by one or more of the virtual tuners; managing scheduling of use of the plurality of virtual tuners by the plurality of client devices accordingly to a scheduling priority assigned to each use by the client devices; and locking a client device of the plurality of client devices to a corresponding virtual tuner of the one or more virtual tuners such that a differing client device of the plurality of client devices is not permitted to schedule content consumption using the corresponding virtual turner during periods when the corresponding virtual tuner is not being employed by the corresponding client device.