A system is described comprising: a local node to distribute multimedia content to a plurality of remote nodes; a power detection module to detect power usage of a multimedia device coupled to a first one of the remote nodes; a power analysis module to determine, based on the detected power usage, whether the multimedia device is in a first power state or a second power state; and a transmitter to transmit an indication of the detected state to the local node, the indication usable by the node to allocate multimedia processing resources across the plurality of remote nodes.