Techniques for distributing digital media content to personal electronic devices are discussed. Digital media content is collected from a variety of disparate digital media content sources. Specific digital media content is identified and transcoded into a selected format prior to receipt by a particular personal electronic device. The selected format may be based on preferences or characteristics of the personal electronic device or the user thereof, the network, or both. Virtually unlimited subset selection criteria may be used to arranged transcoded digital media content into subsets, which may be temporarily or permanently stored in a single computer or using distributed computing techniques. DRM and identity management techniques can be used in combination with the transcoding and distribution techniques discussed herein to accommodate many business models.