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Google is killing the Play Movies and TV app for certain smart TVs in June

Getting your hands, or rather your eyes, on the latest films and TV is made somewhat easier thanks to Google Play Movies and TV. This storefront allows you to rent films and TV series (depending where you are in the world) and stream them on your PC, smartphone, tablet or TV.

Unfortunately some smart TV models will no longer be able to access the Google Play Movies and TV app from 15th June according to Google.

“…the Google Play Movies & TV app will no longer be available on Roku, Samsung, LG, and Vizio smart TVs. The YouTube app will be your new home for movies and shows. Just log in with your Google account in the YouTube app today, you’ll have access to all of your past purchases, and will be able to browse, purchase, and rent new content,” Google wrote on its support page.

Unfortunately, at of time of writing, the ability to purchase or rent movies on YouTube is limited to a handful of countries. Whether this means Google intends to expand the reach of YouTube’s movie rental and purchase functionality is unknown at this stage but we aren’t holding our breath.

Some points worth mentioning about this change:

  • All of your past purchases will be available on YouTube.
  • Your Google Play credits can be used on YouTube to make purchases.
  • Play Family Library purchases can be viewed on YouTube but purchases made on YouTube do not support family sharing. Purchases made from the Google Play Movies & TV website or app will continue to support family sharing.
  • Your Watchlist is not available on YouTube, but you can set up Playlists.

The good news is that even though you can’t buy movies directly through YouTube, you can see movies you’ve purchased through Google Play. Simply open YouTube, head to Library and then Your movies to find your content on YouTube.

We’ve fired off a few questions to Google to find out more about whether you will be able to purchase content through YouTube ahead of this app culling and we’ll be sure to share that response with you.

We don’t quite understand why Google is doing this.

Some outlets report the firm is trying to move away from the “Play” name and in so doing is putting its eggs into the YouTube name. Last year we saw Google Play Music killed off and replaced by YouTube Music.

It looks like Google is trying to make YouTube its one stop entertainment shop which does make sense. Whether Google will shift all of its movie and series rentals over to YouTube is likely but not happening just yet.

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