An apparatus for managing recording quality in a multicast adaptive bitrate (MABR) communications network, the apparatus comprising:
- a segmentation and gapping (SAG) unit configured to receive a plurality of encoded MABR streams for each service channel from an MABR encoder operative to receive a plurality of service channels, wherein each encoded MABR stream corresponds to a particular bitrate representation of a specific service channel, the SAG unit further operative to generate a segmented and gapped MABR stream for each encoded MABR stream of each service channel;
- a digital video recorder (DVR) scheduler and optimization (DSO) element configured to provide program recording schedules to a client device disposed in a subscriber premises including one or more client devices, the program recording schedules comprising an electronic program guide showing a plurality of programs available on a set of MABR service channels serving the subscriber premises, the DSO element further adapted to:
- receive at least one of (i) one or more storage update messages from a client device disposed in a subscriber premises including one or more client devices, the one or more storage update messages including information indicative of usage of a target recording device disposed in the subscriber premises, and (ii) one or more record state messages from the client device disposed in the subscriber premises, the one or more record state messages including information indicative of when a recording on the target recording device starts and stops;
- configure a user-selectable Look Ahead (LA) period responsive to a client schedule for programs to be recorded at the target recording device disposed in the subscriber premises including one or more devices;
- determine available storage space on the target recording device for recording one or more programs scheduled over the Look Ahead (LA) period;
- and
- responsive to the LA period and the available storage space, determine a bitrate cap for recording the one or more programs over the LA period and provide a bitrate cap request message to a multicast ABR policy manager to indicate whether a bitrate filter is applicable with respect to the one or more programs to be recorded at the target recording device;
- and
- a multicast ABR video management agent (MVMA) operative to receive one or more messages from the multicast ABR policy manager, the one or more messages including at least one of the bitrate filter indication information and bandwidth policy information with respect to a subscriber premises bandwidth pipe serving the subscriber premises, and responsive thereto, the multicast ABR video management agent being configured to join the target recording device to respective service channels corresponding to the one or more programs at select bitrate representations that maximize bitrate quality of recording of the one or more programs at the target recording device.