Read The Small Print

This past week has been particularly nice, because I've been on vacation. We decided to not to travel anywhere for the holidays this year, so we just stayed at home and enjoyed our sanctuary. The majority of our holiday shopping was finished before the vacation started which means we didn't even need to head out into the stores for any last-minute gifts. My company had our offices parties the week before last and all gifts were given then. So really... the only thing I had to do on my vacation was to simply enjoy it!

Before I go any further, let me say that I have indeed enjoyed my time away from work with friends and family, and that the annoyance that I am about to share with you did irk me, but it wasn't a big enough issue to ruin a vacation. It's just something I felt needed more clarification.

Through the office parties at my work, I walked away with $40 in Google Play gift cards, among other things. Not a bad haul at all! And since most of the apps I use I have either a) already paid for, or b) use the free version... I didn't have much use for $40 in the Google Play store. And what does everyone do during some free time away from work? Watch movies! And since High Definition movie rentals on Google Play run about $4.99, I could watch quite a few movies while on my break.

My girlfriend's younger brother and sister were staying with us for a couple days right before Christmas, so the first movie we rented was A Christmas Carol (the animated version with Jim Carrey). While I could have sworn I chose the "Rent HD" option for $2.99, I wasn't getting a viewing option greater that 480p (for those that don't know, High Definition is considered either 720p or 1080p. 480p will forever sit in the Standard Definition category).

Allow me to back-track for just a moment. At the current time, we do not have cable television. We didn't feel the need to pay close to $200 for the 8 or 10 channels we liked to watch. So we now watch our shows online. This is possible with Hulu and Netflix, with the exception of the premium networks like HBO, Showtime, and AMC, to name a few. Our Playstation 3 has Netflix, and for Hulu, we have my laptop connected to the TV via HDMI cable so anything we can watch online, we watch on the big 46-inch flat screen instead of huddling around a 17-inch laptop display. The latter is how we have been watching Doctor Who after purchasing the season through iTunes. However, I am not a fan of iTunes whatsoever, so with Google offering movies and TV shows, it gave me a solid reason to leaves iTunes forever. Unfortunately, I was wrong.

Back to the movie rental side of the story. I may have been mistaken in thinking that I ordered the HD version of the movie, or perhaps since it was an older movie (2009) it wasn't in HD (but then why offer it?). That just made me more careful when ordering the second movie, Men In Black 3 (2012), to make sure I order the HD version. I did, and again was only offered resolution up to 480p. At this point, I have given Google $2 just because. My laptop is a beast. It can handle video in 1080p. I know it can because it has done it many times before! So what is going on? Well... let's take a look at the picture below.

Do you see the difference? With Google Play, you cannot watch HD on the web... meaning on a computer. But you can watch HD on your Android tablet, or Android smartphone! This makes no sense to me. After firing off a complaint to Google about buying HD but not receiving it, I got a reply. It said:

"Thanks for contacting us. At this time, most high-definition (HD) purchases are only available on tablets running Android 3.2 or higher and phones running Android 4.0 or higher. HD Movies are not able to be played back on computers at this time, so if you made a purchase in HD, it will revert to SD. TV shows in HD, however, are able to be played on the computer at this time."

Of course, I read this and got instantly puzzled. Why in the world would HD work for TV shows, but not movies? And then I kept reading.

"At this time, certain movie studios and manufacturers dictate the definition of the video on your device and on the computer. So, even though your phone may support HD playback, the movie studio may not allow it."

I guess I can't be completely mad at Google. Some of that agitation can be aimed at the movie studios. Who knows why they will allow HD playback on a mobile device but not a computer. They are getting their money either way, so I really don't understand what the issue could possibly be.

So let my oversight be a lesson to you. You cannot watch HD movies on your PC from Google Play. And that is dumb.