Application US20190151756

Hosting and Broadcasting Virtual Events Using Streaming Interactive Video

Methods for hosting and operating a service and systems are provided. One method includes executing one or more video games on one or more servers of a hosting service. The one or more video games are played or used by one or more users on one or more client devices remote to the hosting service via compressed streaming interactive video. The compressed streaming interactive video is sent to the one or more client devices where decompression of the compressed streaming interactive video is preformed to display video of each of said one or more video games and said one or more servers are configured to receive user control input to driver interactivity with said one or more video games. The method includes broadcasting the one or more video games as one or more streams of real-time compressed digital video to enable one or more viewing client devices to view play of said one or more video games over the Internet. Each of the one or more viewing client devices receives one or more of the streams of real-time compressed digital video. The method includes overlaying with the streams of real-time compressed digital video, audio from one or more of the viewing client devices, such that the audio is included in the broadcasting of the one or more video games. And, adjusting a compression rate for said broadcasting to each of said viewing client devices based on a respective connection performance each of said viewing client devices has with respect to said one or more servers of the hosting service.