Pre-fetching content among dvrs

A cloud-based digital video recorder (DVR) comprising:

• a computing core including processing circuitry and associated memory;
• a local memory configured to store media items for delivery to requesting devices;
• a first shared memory accessible by other cloud-based DVRs;
• at least one network interface coupled to at least a second cloud-based DVR including a second shared memory, the first shared memory and the second shared memory configured to store different portions of a particular content item;
• the at least one network interface further coupled to requesting devices via a wide area network;
• the computing core configured to:
• determine an estimated probability that delivery of a particular content item will be requested;
• determine a difference between a current load and an average load of the second shared memory;
• determine whether a variable probability threshold associated with the particular content item is satisfied, the variable probability threshold indicating whether the estimated probability associated with the particular content item is sufficient to justify pre-fetching a portion of the particular content item from the second shared memory, given the difference between the current load and the average load of the second shared memory;
• and
• pre-fetch the portion of the particular content item from the second shared memory based on the estimated probability associated with the particular content item satisfying the variable probability threshold.

A method comprising:

• determining, at a processing device, whether an estimated probability of receiving a request for delivery of one or more specific content items from one or more media delivery devices exceeds a probability threshold, wherein the processing device includes a first memory coupled to a second memory included in a cloud-based digital video recorder (DVR), the first memory and the second memory configured to store portions of the one or more specific content items;
• determining, at the processing device, whether a difference between a current load and an average load of the second memory included in the cloud-based DVR satisfies a difference-threshold requirement;
• determining, at the processing device, whether a variable probability threshold associated with the one or more specific content items is satisfied, the variable probability threshold indicating whether an estimated probability of receiving a request for delivery of one or more specific content items is sufficient to justify pre-fetching a portion of the one or more specific content items stored in the second memory, given the difference between the current load and the average load;
• and
• pre-fetching the portion of the one or more specific content items stored in the second memory from the cloud-based DVR to the first memory in response to a request probability associated with the one or more specific content items satisfying the variable probability threshold, and further in response to the difference exceeding the difference-threshold requirement.