Systems and methods of alternative networked application services

A non-transitory computer readable storage medium storing one or more programs for execution by one or more processors of a server system hosting one or more virtual client devices, each virtual client device corresponding to a remote physical client device that plays back video content received from a content server, the one or more programs including instructions for:

• receiving, from a respective remote physical client device, a digest of a segment of video content received by the respective remote physical client device, the segment of video content including a plurality of frames of video content;
• in response to receiving the digest:
• sending a playback command to the respective remote physical device to playback one or more of the plurality of frames of video content in the segment, wherein the plurality of frames of video content in the segment have a frame rate;
• determining a graphical processing unit (GPU) overlay instruction for overlaying content with a respective portion of the segment of video content;
• and sending the GPU overlay instruction to the respective remote physical client device, wherein a frame rate of the overlayed content is sent at a frame rate independent of the frame rate of the plurality of frames of video content and is variably determined by the server system.

A server system hosting one or more virtual client devices, each virtual client device corresponding to a remote physical client device that plays back video content received from a content server, the server system comprising one or more processors and memory storing one or more programs for execution by the one or more processors, the one or more programs including instructions for:

• receiving, from a respective remote physical client device, a digest of a segment of video content received by the respective remote physical client device, the segment of video content including a plurality of frames of video content;
• in response to receiving the digest:
• sending a playback command to the respective remote physical device to playback one or more of the plurality of frames of video content in the segment,
• wherein the plurality of frames of video content in the segment have a frame rate;
• determining a graphical processing unit (GPU) overlay instruction for overlaying content with a respective portion of the segment of video content;
• and
• sending the GPU overlay instruction to the respective remote physical client device, wherein a frame rate of the overlayed content is sent at a frame rate independent of the frame rate of the plurality of frames of video content and is variably determined by the server system.