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Google Is Removing Its Play Movies and TV App From Every Roku and Most Smart TVs (theverge.com) 77

Posted by BeauHD from the application-consolidation dept.
Google has announced that the Google Play Movies and TV app will no longer be available on any Roku set-top box or any Samsung, LG, Vizio or Roku smart TV starting July 15th. The Verge reports: If you have movies or TV shows purchased or rented through the service, you'll still be able to access them through the "Your movies and shows" section of the YouTube app on those devices. This change will also affect you if if you used the Movies and TV app to access Movies Anywhere, the service that allows you to redeem codes from DVDs and Blu-rays so you can access your media digitally. Google has confirmed to The Verge that users who relied on Play Movies and TV to access that content will be able to do so through YouTube.

There are a few other caveats to note in the transition to YouTube. Your Watchlist will no longer be viewable in the app (though it can still be seen on the web by Googling "my watchlist"), and while your family can still share the content you bought from the Movie and TV store, any purchases made in the YouTube app won't be shared with your family. [The Verge's article breaks down all the various ways you can access the content you purchased through the Play Store after July 15th.]
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Google Is Removing Its Play Movies and TV App From Every Roku and Most Smart TVs More

Google Is Removing Its Play Movies and TV App From Every Roku and Most Smart TVs

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  • In other news (Score:5, Insightful)

    by NoNonAlphaCharsHere ( 2201864 ) on Tuesday April 13, 2021 @05:16AM (#61267658)
    My blender manufacturer has retroactively revoked my ability to make smoothies, and my auto manufacturer says I am no longer able to transport groceries.

    • Re: (Score:2, Interesting)

      by Anonymous Coward

      This. It was sold with that capability clearly advertised on the actual box. Implied that it would be for the functional life of the product.

      Class action waiting to happen. And hopefully this will sort out anyone else trying the same shit.

      • I think Google has been training the public by canceling services routinely in order to normalize that action. So, I doubt anything will happen

        • Re: (Score:3, Interesting)

          by Rip!ey ( 599235 )

          If you still have access to your purchased content, then there is no law suit, let alone a class action one. You Americans.

          On second thoughts, I take that back. Thanks to you Americans, there probably will be a class action law suit. But I doubt that it will be successful. You still have access to your purchased content.

          There will however be a new entry at https://killedbygoogle.com/ [killedbygoogle.com] , and that one will succeed.

          • Re: In other news (Score:4, Insightful)

            by getuid() ( 1305889 ) on Tuesday April 13, 2021 @08:15AM (#61268082)

            I don't own a Roku set-top box ir a Samsung, LG, ... smart TV and never have, so by Slashdot house rules this clearly makes me the entity best qualified to give a final, authoritative comment on the matter. [*]

            Which is:

            You're not only buying the content; you're buying a device with a specific feature, namely to access said content in a specific way. So, yes, class action waiting to happen. It's like somebody turned your blender into a set of knives plus a juice press overnight, and their defense is "you don't get to sue because you can still chop the carrots". Sorry doesn't work like that.

            [*] I'm also not American, which means that your "+1 NotAmerican" bonus is powerless with me.

      • ... more a case of better consumer protection legislation required.

        Whilst I agree that a class action suit is probably quite likely, it should not be necessary for consumers to have to file a civil suite against a cavalier vendor/technologist in a situation like this. And no, in case anyone pipes up with, "But all that will happen is that vendors will display huge disclaimers all over the place", that's not a solution, because "reserving the right to alter a product or surface" after *purchase* can mater

        • Re: (Score:1)

          by Anonymous Coward

          Zero chance of a class action lawsuit succeeding.

          a) you can still access any movies you purchased through YouTube. You've lost nothing.

          b) the apps available on a smart tv or other device can change over time. Where on earth the expectation arises that any given app should be available in perpetuity I don't know, but it's certainly not a right enshrined in law. There is no case.

      • To expect a very specific app to be available forever is insane. Let's be real here. Google has 3 apps that essentially deliver similar content - just from different sources. They want to manage 1 app and use 1 IP for branding. You are going to sue them for merging their services and branding, and then telling you to install the new app for those services??? Same provider and same content, just 2 less apps that they wanted to manage for the same content delivery.

        What's the class action lawsuit supposed to d

        • If google wants to use one app and one ip for branding, then why do they keep creating new services and new ip with intentionally different branding?

          The stuff you are saying is bullshit.

          • Re: (Score:2)

            by quall ( 1441799 )

            Are you talking in retrospect as if they can see the future? Apps evolve over time and business decisions change.

            You post as if Youtube always had the ability to rent movies and tv shows. It didn't. They probably saw that people were uploading and searching for them on their platform, and google thought it would be a good decision to sell them there too. Premium content wasn't always on Youtube. They were added to evolve the services. Google Play Movies make no sense, since google is maintaining 2 feature a

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by EvilSS ( 557649 )

        This. It was sold with that capability clearly advertised on the actual box. Implied that it would be for the functional life of the product.

        Class action waiting to happen. And hopefully this will sort out anyone else trying the same shit.

        What functionality advertised clearly on the box was removed that you feel is worthy of a class action?

      • Who do you sue? ROKU? It wasn't their decision. They can't stop it. Google? Was it Google that promised lifetime support on ROKU?

        However this means I will not be using google as all I have is a ROKU and Apple TV box.

        • Re: (Score:2)

          by Sloppy ( 14984 )

          Who do you sue? ROKU? It wasn't their decision.

          People are saying Roku printed it on the box, said it in ads, etc. If that's true, then surely it was Roku's decision. And if Roku promised something pre-sale that they can't deliver post-sale, who cares why? That's Roku's problem, not the buyer's problem.

          OTOH, a big part of me is tempted to mention a little consumer common sense: proprietary streaming was made to be broken. It can't be generally interoperable, because that would defeat the whole point! When yo

          • Set top boxes and such are marketed to the general public like those that bought DVD and VCRs that couldn't figure out how to fix the flash 12:00.... no way they would know what NFS, SMB/CIFS, DLNA, etc.is...

            However I doubt the ROKU box guaranteed "for life" or even for region. For example I bought mine and it had a "Prime" button and it printed on the box... Prime was not available via ROKU in Canada... did the box support it? Yup, if I VPN it would work. Due to stupid rules it wasn't allowed in Canada fo

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by quall ( 1441799 )

      You bought a blender that operates out of a service??? Are you renting your car with limitations??? Clearly you must not own either since you are comparing a service re-branding to actual physical goods.

      If you are going to do that, then at least TRY and make a proper comparison. You blender manufacturer revoked your ability to use it... But then they gave you a new different blender for free, with the same features, to use instead. That's not uncommon when manufactures honer their warranty or issue a recall

      • Re: (Score:1)

        by Anonymous Coward

        Are you renting your car with limitations???

        Well that is the Tesla business model. You "buy" features that are installed in all Tesla vehicles in the factory and hope that Tesla never revokes them. They are showing other auto manufacturers how to do it.

  • New slogan! (Score:5, Insightful)

    by chrish ( 4714 ) on Tuesday April 13, 2021 @05:19AM (#61267662) Homepage

    Google's new slogan should be, "You can't rely on us for anything but ads!"

    • Re: (Score:3)

      by AmiMoJo ( 196126 )

      I'm really glad I didn't buy anything through Google Play Movies. My YouTube account is a brand account for some reason and I can't change it back to a normal user account. Brand accounts can't watch purchased content.

      • Re: (Score:1)

        by Anonymous Coward

        I suspect even you have the technical ability to maybe register a new google account (and maybe keep it non-brand)? :)

      • I've rented a movie or two through Google Play but never had the gumption to purchase one owing to the pattern I've seen with Google through their long history of simply walking away from (e.g. abandoning) products and features.

    • Re: (Score:3, Funny)

      by poptopdrop ( 6713596 )

      From "Do no evil" to "Reliably unreliable"

    • Even their ads contain malware once or twice. Microsoft isn't better, as they have killed music services in the past. Anyway, this re-inforces my belief that you don't own a piece of content unless it's in a industry-standard file (MP3, M4A, AVI, MP4, MKV) on a USB stick. I 've never lost access to any content that way.
    • I wonder will they ever allow real money casinos [casinoblacks.com] in their platfrom.

  • Purchased? (Score:5, Informative)

    by shabble ( 90296 ) <metnysr_slashdot@shabble.co.uk> on Tuesday April 13, 2021 @05:30AM (#61267672)

    The Verge's article breaks down all the various ways you can access the content you purchased through the Play Store

    Licenced, surely?

    • Re: (Score:1)

      by quall ( 1441799 )

      No. It's their Youtube app or Google TV. Did you bother reading the article after the guy mentioned it? They have so many redundant apps it's no winder that they didn't consolidate them sooner.

      • No. It's their Youtube app or Google TV. Did you bother reading the article after the guy mentioned it? They have so many redundant apps it's no winder that they didn't consolidate them sooner.

        Note that they aren't consolidating on most platforms. On Android (including Android TV), iOS, Chromecast and the web, nothing is changing (yet?), you still use the Google TV app/site, though apparently you'll also be able to use the YouTube app/site (hmm, I just checked and you already can). It's only on Roku, Samsung TVs and Vizio TVs that the Google TV app is going away and the content will be offered only through the YouTube app that is already available on those devices.

        Personally, although I have a

  • Physical media for the win. Again. (Score:4, Insightful)

    by quonset ( 4839537 ) on Tuesday April 13, 2021 @06:24AM (#61267734)

    And here we see another shining example of why owning a physical media (DVD/Blue Ray) is far superior than digital. Once you have that physical object, you are free to do with it what you want for your own enjoyment (and not your 1 million "friends"). You own that item. The publisher/manufacturer cannot come into your home and remove it whenever they feel like it, nor can they alter its contents. It's yours to keep in perpetuity, or, if you prefer, sell it to someone else.

    • I couldn't agree more

    • My pirated digital media is still working pretty good too. Piracy FTW

    • Re:Physical media for the win. Again. (Score:5, Insightful)

      by karmatic ( 776420 ) on Tuesday April 13, 2021 @07:16AM (#61267890)

      The funny thing is that blu ray disks and DVDs can update the MKB, retroactively revoking keys for your player. So, as soon as you connect to the internet, or insert a newly purchased blu ray or DVD they can take away your ability to play disks already in your library.

      They can also revoke HDCP keys using a similar process, so they can destroy your TV or monitors ability to play the content, too.

    • Comment removed based on user account deletion

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by nagora ( 177841 )

        Did any of you guys read past the headline?

        The content will still be available on the Roku, just not via the Play Movies app. This is part of Google's YouTube rebranding shit. They're not taking anything away.

        The YouTube app stopped working on my SmartTV about two years ago.

        • Comment removed based on user account deletion

        • Did any of you guys read past the headline?

          The content will still be available on the Roku, just not via the Play Movies app. This is part of Google's YouTube rebranding shit. They're not taking anything away.

          The YouTube app stopped working on my SmartTV about two years ago.

          Get a Chromecast. Cheap, works with everything.

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by Merk42 ( 1906718 )

        Did any of you guys read past the headline?

        They didn't read past "Google"

        Company did thing! Company bad!111

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by mark-t ( 151149 )

        This is a minor inconvenience, because anyone with a shared TV now has to keep signing into and out of YouTube to watch the movies they bought...

        Why? Don't smart televisions support cookies or do something moderately useful likee remember login profiles?

    • Yes, except that the Bluray standard has a back door in which a player's firmware update can block any Bluray disc they want.

      Have they done so far as I know?
      No.

      Yet their are more reasons not to buy a Bluray player. Just buy the discs and put them on a media player.

      Call me paranoid, but I never bought into that Bluray player nonsense. Yes, dedicated players are convenient, but with the need to "phone home" and planned obsolescence in just a few years, count me out of that rat race.
    • Another totally agree. My BD's/DVD's/CD's and even LP's from the 70's all play just fine. Weirdly, LP's are coming back in style.

  • People dont get the tv they bought (Score:3)

    by fluffernutter ( 1411889 ) on Tuesday April 13, 2021 @06:25AM (#61267740)
    So yet another reason not to get a smart tv. You don't even know if you will be able to keep all the services you bought it with. Smart tvs are just a bad idea. if they can demonstrate that the tv would otherwise cost $500 more then i guess it may be worth it but i doubt anyone could do that. Its hard to say without a non smart tv on the market at all to compare to.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by Entrope ( 68843 )

      Yeah! People should get something like a Roku instead because then... oh, wait.

      Isn't that the usual suggestion in this case? Get an external box for streaming content, because it's easier to put limits on and the incentives are supposedly more in the consumer's favor?

      • It's hard to beat a $30 FireTV 4K (sale price) with SmartTubeNext (check github) network-sideloaded on it. Even auto updates.

        adb connect 198.51.100.63
        adb install SmartTubeNext.apk
        adb disconnect

        Just make sure your firewall can route your PC to your IoT network.

        MakeMKV helps you watch RedBox BluRays on a Linux computer or via VLC on your FireTV. Very few movies are even worth the $2 these days.

        If Google thinks they can unilaterally revoke family sharing on purchased content, they can unilaterally refund th

      • Buy a smart TV and then buy a Roku. Never activate the apps on the smart TV because they're slower and a pain to navigate in and out of.

        For the price, you can replace it if you have to but even roughly 10 year old boxes are still fully functional. So far, only the 1st gen equipment is out of support and even then some apps still work (without updates).

    • Re: (Score:3)

      by DarkOx ( 621550 )

      Part of the problem is mental model. We all got used analog TV and radio. Radios got cheap with the transistor and we started looking at both portables and tuners for your home stereo as nearly disposable items. They were not large investments any more.

      TVs followed the same pattern. We had like 5 decades of stable broadcast standard because sets were major purchases. Suddenly around the late 90s they started getting cheap. Look at what you paid for a TV in the early 90s vs today - talking about a "full siz

    • Yep, I got a refurb computer for $100 3 years ago and it plays absolutely everything. I never have to worry about anything stopping working for the foreseeable future, unless a service is cancelled completely. I would love to be able to buy a dumb display, but they just don't exist. The best you can do is get a TV and never connect it to the internet.

      • Dumb TVs absolutely do still exist. Look for digital signage displays.

        • Paying extra for that is silly. At least with LG, you can pretty well just leave it on HDMI 1 and ignore the smarts.

          • You don't have to pay extra, necessarily, if you shop around. I have seen them quite well-priced. And in general, there are signage displays that don't cost more, or at least don't cost much more. And they tend to have the very best brightness, contrast ratios, and viewing angles because all of those things are useful to their primary mission.

    • Smart TVs are usually cheaper because the content providers subsidize the cost. You can always buy one and never use the built-in streaming functions. My Insignia Fire TV has a "dumb" TV option that bypasses Fire OS and goes straight to a channel and input selector. It also cost $50 less than the same model without the smart features, larger TVs tend to have a higher subsidy as well.
  • Buy a raspberry pi, a large hard disc and make sure you only purchase media that you have full unrestricted access to. Jellyfin, kodi etc work absolutely fine. With one time purchase of cloud content, they get the money up front but they then they're left with having to provide it in perpetuity at their own expense. And bean counters always find ways to cut costs. With time, the probability of losing the ability to access your cloud content approaches 100%

    • So, I went out and bought a Raspberry Pi 4B+, and installed LibreElec on it. Between the card and the case and the power adapter, it was about $80 all in.

      I connected it to my TV. It wouldn't allow me to set the analog out as my default audio device; I had to change it from Bluetooth, every time I started it up, even though I had no paired devices and had the radio disabled.

      Accessing movies off an SMB share required a hard-wire connection, because it would stutter over Wi-Fi - even 802.11ac wi-fi that regula

      • I take your point. If you buy a commerical product it will be highly polished and must be useable by the lowest common denominator so I'd expect setup to be super simple. Also, economies of scale will ensure that it will likely be cheaper. However, the massive drawback is that you have no control over what you've purchased. So yes, it boils down to whether you want ease of setup and low cost, or control over your media. I'd divide your issues primarily into two groups: setup of the system and attempting to
  • Yes, Google is getting rid of the Play Movies and TV app, and transitioning its features to YouTube. They aren't taking away items you bought, but you will have to change how you view them. People don't like change so there is a negative reaction to it.

    It does point out the dangers of buying online content in stat the service can end or terminate access anytime, un like p[physical versions of the same material. It's very convenient to be able to simply select a movie, show or song from an app and have it p

    • People don't like change so there is a negative reaction to it.

      There's more to it than that. The negative reaction is not simply about change as such, but about Google's continued removal of features.

      This seems to be a continuation of the collapse of Play Music into YouTube Music. While I'm sure it was sold internally as focusing on their successful YouTube brand, it also dramatically reduced the features available. Not only does YouTube Music still not work on many devices--including most of my Google Home speakers--but like YouTube at large it's designed to shove con

    • My big complaint is that (at least on the Roku), the Youtube app is just an HTML5 web app and it doesn't use the native APIs. As a result, it's a bit slow. Plus, the whole point of having different apps is more rapid access that isn't buried under menu after menu. That said, I very rarely even used the Play Movies app and it was only for access to Movies Anywhere. And most of those movies are usually played from the Blu-ray rip instead. I think I got a few free movies for setting up my UV and then Movi

      • Re: (Score:1)

        by rblaa ( 7972718 )

        Roku does not support HTML web apps. It's all SceneGraph and bright script (basic) coding.

        I have two Roku boxes, and use the Youtube app all the time. It plays fine, I can access purchased content.

        My only complaint is the lack of comments.

  • Welcome to the UCCA [ United Corporations and Churches of America], was the USA
    where the real product is the stock and
    the true customer is the stock holder.
    In gawd we trust, all others will have their personal information pilfered, plundered, raped and sold.
  • Dirty tricks like this just encourage people to pirate content. And not feel guilty when they do so.

  • The ecosystem battles are ridiculous but here we are. The best long term solution is an old laptop or reasonably efficient desktop tucked into cabinet with hdmi to the TV. Virtually every service supports PC and always will. It takes some effort to get the interface clean but at least you get control. There are some ok media PC “remotes” out there to help.

    Lots of us have old hardware in a closet or just get a laptop with a broken screen off ebay for cheap.

  • I seriously can't take this any more.

    Every day is a new product shitcanned or a web site mothballed or a web service deprecated. And now they want to route everything into youtube so they can force me to sign up for a stupid youtube streaming account?

    Sorry, I'll go play in the apple walled garden. At least there the services hang around in whatever form they offer...

  • Most of you are talking as if you can never watch these video on these TV's You just use a different app.

    • Well, on the one hand, the YouTube app is a dog's breakfast of poor UI.

      On the other, the play movies and tv app is an unmaintained wreckage full of bugs. One caused it to crash repeatedly, another swallowed my movie rental before I had watched it.

      So yes, it's about branding for the potential YouTube spinoff to a new owner but at the same time they've let the old app wither.

  • " you'll still be able to access them through the "Your movies and shows" section of the YouTube app on those devices. "
    Will not work because youtube has already been removed from some smartTVs

    If an advertised feature of a TV or other device is deactivated or removed by anybody, then the customer should easily be able to get a refund or return the device for full refund. This is not how it works now, the customers are just screwed.

    After purchasing multiple smartTVs and other devices, I will never do it aga

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