Almost two months after the 4K capable Chromecast Ultra went on-sale here in Australia and just over a month after 4K movies started showing up on Google Play, you still can’t get 4K movies through Google Play Movies & TV.
At their September ‘Made by Google’ event in San Francisco, Google not only announced the Pixel, but announced their intentions to move into 4K streaming. They announced the hardware with the Chromecast Ultra, which finally went on-sale in Australia on November 24th, and the content side with 4K movies coming to Google Play in November.
Google finally started selling 4K content through Google Play in December, but here we are in January and there’s no options for Google’s own video store.
For their part, Google Australia has advised that 4K content will remain a US-only (and Canada) exclusive for now, with no time-frame to announce for the Australian market.
Like a lot of you, I enjoy using the Chromecast Ultra thanks to the built-in ethernet jack in the power plug which means spotty Wi-Fi reception is no longer a factor in my video viewing. But I want 4K. At this stage, all I can do is attempt to stream 4K from YouTube, or I can upgrade my Netflix package to $14.99 per month for access to their content in UHD.
I’ve been purchasing HD resolution videos from Google Play for a while now, but with a 4K HDR LED panel with Chromecast Ultra plugged in, I want those movies in 4K. Hopefully Google expands 4K movie availability to other countries faster than they have podcasts, but at this stage the only solution is to wait, or pay extra for Netflix.
Thanks for the heads up, until Australia gets 4k I can save money…But my wallet will be empty the day it goes live 😉
Thanks Malcolm.
Not really a surprise. And really the Australian Play store for movies and TV is pretty poor even now, where it seems like an awful lot of it doesn’t even have 5.1 audio whilst on iTunes that is the standard. Makes me not buy much at all on Google Play. Ad to that an awful lot of the time its cheaper or the same price to get a better quality disc and just put that on my plex server. And the TV store is sparse compared to the Apple option.
Google does not really seem to be trying that hard.