A hybrid recording mechanism for simultaneous recording of multiple broadcast IPTV channels

Currently, Internet Protocol TV (IPTV) has launched an evolution of TV consumers' experience. IPTV can not only provide high quality video service like High Definition Television (HDTV), but also offer much more flexible value-added service such as Video on Demand (VoD), and Personal Video Recording (PVR). Among these new features, PVR is one of the most attractive functions for consumers. With PVR function, users can easily schedule recording the programs that they plan to watch them when they have time. However, one big issue for traditional PVR is parallel recording for multiple channels. Due to the hardware performance limitation, the number of channels that can be recorded simultaneously is not enough compared with users' requirement. In order to solve this problem, this paper shows a hybrid recording mechanism which provides extended recording capability of IPTV client by sharing the recorded program among related IPTV clients through the efficient resource management of recording channels. The comparison result shows that the proposed mechanism can improve the real time recording capacity of IPTV system.