Your friend tells you about a great TV show or movie, and lets you know that you MUST watch it. The next question you ask yourself is “Can I stream it?” So, you immediately go through all of your various streaming services and figure out where you can catch it. It’s time-consuming and admittedly a bit annoying. Most people these days subscribe to at least 2 or 3 different streaming services, and they all offer something different.
Google has just announced a very useful feature to help with this exact problem. According to the company, within both the Google Play Movies & TV app and in the Play Store, you can easily discover if that show or movie is available on a streaming service. For example, searching for “This is Us” will allow you to see that the latest season is for sale on Play Movies & TV, but also that it’s available to stream on the NBC app (with a cable subscription) or on Hulu.
Instead of opening each app and looking for the show, there will be an easy link to access the show on each platform currently tapped into the service. The only holdout at the moment seems to be Netflix, but Google says they are already in talks to add it. So far they have support for more than two dozen streaming and TV everywhere apps, including ABC, CBS, FOX NOW, NBC, Hulu, HBO NOW, HBO Go, Showtime, Amazon Prime Video, Disney Now, HGTV, BET Now, Comedy Central and many more.
How to ask Google “Can I stream it?”
To find out if you can stream a certain movie or show, open Google Play Movies & TV (available on Android and iOS).
Click the search icon in the top right corner of the screen, and type the name of the show you are looking to watch.
Once you are on the page for your movie or TV show, you can click the drop-down arrow next to where it tells you the price to purchase or rent the item. It will show you a list of all the places you can find the item online. In the example of Psych above, you can see that you can purchase it through Play Movies & TV, or you can watch it through Amazon Prime Video if you have a membership.
Save shows to watch later
Google is also adding a new Watchlist feature, which makes it easier to save shows and movies to watch later. All you have to do is long press on any show or movie and add it to your watchlist. In the watchlist tab, you will be able to see when those shows become available to buy or rent on Play, if the price has recently dropped, or if it is now available to stream. This will be a great place to keep a list of shows you intend to watch as well, when you are out with friends who recommend something.
Check out the video announcing the new features…
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