A method and system for transmitting channels to at least one digital video recorder is described. A server receives at least one recording schedule from a plurality of digital video recorders (step 304). A subset of channels is selected from the channels associated with the at least one program identification of the received at least one recording schedule (step 306). Information is transmitted from the server to at least one of the plurality of digital video recorders, the information indicating channels associated with the at least one program identification of the at least one recording schedule that were not selected (step 308). The selected subset of channels is also transmitted from the server to at least one of the plurality of digital video recorders (step 310).