You are here

CB » News & Rumors » Google announces movie rentals for Android, BlackBerry PlayBook already capable of playing them
Google Movies
Audi Introduces Roadside Assistance App for BlackBerry Previous
Quick Review: Al Jazeera English for BlackBerryNext
32 Comments

Google announces movie rentals for Android, BlackBerry PlayBook already capable of playing them

By Bla1ze on 10 May 2011 04:26 pm
0
loading...
11
loading...
98
loading...

You've no doubt by now heard some news about Google today considering they are holding their annual Google I/O conference. One of the larger announcements from their keynote, as noted by the fine folks over at Android Central was that the Android platform now has a movie rental service available to them from Google and YouTube. Major studios have signed on and the content being made available is rather broad and should be of interest to a lot of people.

Google however neglected to mention one thing about the actual services -- it works for other platforms as well. BlackBerry PlayBook owners can already access the content right from within the BlackBerry PlayBook browser. You see, the offerings are powered by YouTube and visiting the YouTube movie site from your BlackBerry PlayBook allows you to login, rent and view movies with ease.

In fact, you can even access it directly from the Android Market as well all from within the BlackBerry PlayBook. Pointless step, yes when you can just go to YouTube -- but the fact it allows you to do so is funny. So yes, Hulu and Netflix may be out for now -- but would YouTube really block the services? Not likely. Go ahead and give it a shot, let us know how it works for you. Keep in mind though, only available free videos can be played in Canada. Free and paid are available in the U.S.

Check it out via YouTube

Topics: Android Youtube BlackBerry Playbook News & Rumors

Audi Introduces Roadside Assistance App for BlackBerry Previous
Quick Review: Al Jazeera English for BlackBerryNext
Bla1ze Bla1ze 2968 (articles) 6544 (forum posts)
32 comments

hellnback76

It is about freaking time, this is great news.

feldmen01

Canada always gets boned.... stupid Copyright laws and such!

diegonei

Just be thankful you're not in Brasil... ¬¬

EDIT: Chrome managed to access it, there 12 free videos I can watch.

EDIT 2: OI! Now playing: Land of The Little People on my Bold 9780. o.0

Yep, just point the browser to http://www.youtube.com/movies .

fred_flinstone

is this streamed or can it be downloaded to the device to be played offline?

BaconMunch

Here is an interesting comparison of how different mobile browsers handle Google's Movie Service: http://zd.net/ig5Xkb
•PlayBook broser: Access through www.youtube.com/movies
•Default Android browser: Doesn’t work, seems to just hang after pressing play.
•Firefox Mobile on Android: Doesn’t work, reports not compatible.
•Dolphin Browser HD: Works decently, reports it is not optimized for mobile.
•Opera Mobile for Android: Doesn’t work, “error occurred please try again later.”
•Skyfire: Works decently, reports it is not optimized for mobile.
•Symbian browser: Yeah, right, it can barely browse standard websites.

Bla1ze

That report is inaccurate, it works fine in the Android browser itself (and some of the others listed) if you have a flash enabled device.

Gerii

It works fine in the Symbian browser on my N8..

mkye86

this is great is the content HD quality?

luqman24

Will it work in Canada if i make a new youtube account but change the country to the US or is it based on ip address?

dcabuckeye

Just use the YouTube app and start watching. VERY easy. Snap!

shingi_70

How is it funny? I mean its nit like your using ir deom the honeycomb maerket but the web market so logic would tell its common sense to be able to watch it.

jonty12

Has the "Pin" functionality been launched? If so, does it work on the PB? I'm not in a WiFi zone right now, so can't check myself.

c_ram1256

I was excited as hell until I actually tried to watch a movie on my Playbook. Seven attempts to watch a free movie and seven times I received the explanation mark in a circle. It looks as though it would work well but as of yet has not. Does anybody have a clue as to why this is happening. All other Youtube vids play fine. Is there a setting that I have to change? Thanks n advance

c_ram

TheMarco

Same thing here just now when I tried it. WTF?

dresz

It works just great for me.

sf49ers

refreshing the page/video is the work around whenever you see a exclamation mark on the flash player.

jcv822

try closing all windows and apps and restart browser..if that doesn't work, restart the playbook.works fine with me. every time I get that exclamation mark, i do these steps.

naturesguard

I am streaming on the PB as I speak and it is working great.

shaolinfinest

watching now on my Playbook as well, no problems.

Off topic: why can't RIM update the spell checker in the Playbook to accept the word "Playbook"

branflakes

Plays fine in my Torch browser by going to www.youtube.com/movies link.

santi29402

works great for me. Just dont like that the free movies have an ad running about every 15 minutes or so.

enzo07i

it seems that google is now blocking anyone from accessing youtube.com/movies, the error said that Http/1.1 Service Unavailable

paulvr01

Not just movies but the you tuble site in general from the browser

enzo07i

google taking some risks just to deny playbook user in accessing their movies, it seems that they blocked the youtube movies in desktop,

enzo07i

youtube/movies is back for now,

enzo07i

google maybe trying to block playbook user but they are having hard time to find a way. hahaha thats the power of playbook, desktop like power in tablet

zensen

very underwhelming service especially coming from Google.

I also find it ridiculous that companies find it useful to deny services because its not a desktop computer. considering these services thrive more on consumers getting on board and buying their stuff which is reasonable to expect that playbook could possibly do that sort of thing.

Conheo

Can you leave the browser running or the playbook will go in standby mode ?

jw168

If you are a Amazon Prime member, you can watch free movies using Playbook.

CinciBerry

I am having absolutely NO success renting movies. I get as far as entering my payment information and then can't get past that point. It's not as if I tried once and gave up. I've tried several times and I just end up staring at the same screen hoping it advances. CAN SOMEONE PLEASE POST A COMMENT TO HELP ME???