Apparatus and system for personal display of cable and satellite content

An assembly, consisting essentially of:

• a personal device;
• a content management tool embedded within the personal device;
• a television set;
• and
• a set top terminal locally tethered to the television set, the set top terminal being accessible to the content management tool over a network, the set top terminal configured to store audible or viewable content in a first format for delayed use;
• wherein
• the content management tool is configured to allow the personal device to issue content requests directly to the set top terminal,
• the set top terminal comprises one or more modules configured to implement remote content source management for responding to the content requests and compression of the audible or viewable content to a second format, and
• the content management tool is configured to allow the personal display device to download the audible or viewable content directly from the set top terminal over the network after the audible or viewable content is compressed into the second format.

A method of delivering content from a content server directly to a personal device, the method comprising:

• entering a URL into a local content management tool which is embedded within the personal device, the URL referencing an RSS file available on the content server;
• adding device specific characteristics of the personal device to the URL and downloading the RSS file;
• having the content management tool request the content;
• having the content server transcode the content according to the device specific characteristics added to the URL;
• and
• downloading the transcoded content from the content server directly to the personal device.