Google Play Movies are bad on so many levels I haven't bought a movie there in years and probably never will again.
The whole thing is rubbish. I cannot buy movies unless they are in spanish. Some VO that i might be able to buy have no spanish... which i find incredible stupid being a digital media. SO no HDR... i am not surprise to be honest. The system needs to be look at... really badly
Time to set up a Plex it seems
Not really sure. I've started buying physical 4k blu-rays instead. I like the picture quality better and usually the have the best formats for playback suck as Dolby Vision and Dolby Atmos. As a plus most of the movies I buy have s digital code to be able to stream on Vudu, Movies Anywhere, or another one of those streaming platforms. I've noticed that the digital copy to stream is not always available in the same formats as the physical copy.
I get all of mine on Vudu at this point. Better deals and quality.
They want you to pirate, I guess?
You might wanna Google Blue Ray disc rot. I know in 80 years there's going to be an Internet and my films will still be on there, probably in a much better format like 4K. Or 8K by then.
Then is not when I asked, I said last access. Anyone could change to vudu if they wanted to, or Fandango or any other service that was listed on there. They were warned, given plenty of notice and should have shifted over by then. They did not lose access to their movies. That is the important thing, losing access, not having to shift over to another service. We're talking about losing access. We're not talking about which service they ended up on.
I can tell you a very likely reason
The issue is that still, most devices all over the place with HDR compatibility and even if they have it, which HDR you have is a even more a shitshow of unknowns.
For HDR to work properly, the stars need to align, your device, your tv, your movie all need to be taking in the same HDR format. If they aren’t things get weird and won’t look great or just won’t work.
It’s basically impossible from Googles side to align everything and check everything’s HDR settings and compabililty.
This leads to a simple solution: don’t sell it in HDR (yet).
Because most people don't even know what HDR is and could not tell the difference anyway. Plus very little content is available in HDR.
It's easy saying big words and be unfair.
Google Play offered on Android TV 3-5 years earlier than Apple 1080p $250 Apple TV, HDR movies on real 4K HDR 60p devices like Mi Box $60 2017, Nexus Player $50 2015 and Shield $199 2015.
HDR10+ is open and Dolby Vision is closed, consumer unfriendly and behind it are US. Hollywood is from US. Apple furiously supports of course closed technologies like Dolby Vision because HDR10+ supported by Samsung.
So fewer HDR movies on competitor's Play Movies is a natural phenomenon.
And after that, these same clueless google play people will sit in their office and cry about piracy. You want me to pay for movies, which I will not own physically which means I am dependant on your crappy service survival. and you can't even give me the best quality with atmos sounds and Dolby Vision or HDR10...