YouTube getting ready to launch Hollywood movie rentals

[Emil]

After years of rumors, YouTube is finally launching a movie-on-demand service over at youtube.com/store. Google has charged users for movie rentals for over a year now, but the search giant is finally moving to stream mainstream Hollywood movies from the world's largest video sharing site.

"We've steadily been adding more and more titles since launching movies for rent on YouTube over a year ago, and now have thousands of titles available," a YouTube spokesperson said in a statement. "Outside of that, we don't comment on rumor or speculation."

The service has yet to be announced officially by YouTube or Google, but it appears that the store is already starting to show movies. Major studios partnering with YouTube reportedly include Sony Pictures Entertainment, Warner Brothers, and Universal. All three have licensed their movies for the new service, as have numerous independent studios, including Lionsgate and Kino Lorber, according to movie executives with knowledge of the deals in place, cited by TheWrap.

Google wanted to bring all the major Hollywood studios on board before announcing the service, but it failed to do so. Paramount and Fox have declined to join. Disney's status is still unclear.

The major studios have never liked YouTube, but are starting to see it as a potentially lucrative platform, especially since it isn't a subscription model. YouTube has some 130 million monthly users and this deal means they can all pay to watch movies on the site as they come out on DVD or on Apple's iTunes. The movies will thus also be available before they arrive on subscription streaming services such as Netflix.

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https://www.techspot.com/news/43488-youtube-getting-ready-to-launch-hollywood-movie-rentals.html

 

[AnonymousSurfer]

This is a **** idea...

This will be another one of youtube's fail ideas. The only reason people go to youtube is to watch videos made by other people, not by companies. They will also fail with this idea in the fact that you have to pay to watch the movies. That is a pain in the ***, and people will just stick with Netflix or ACTUAL video on demand

 

[HiDDeNMisT]

yeah im with the guy above me. i think this is going to fail badly

 

[tonylukac]

It seems that youtube doesn't even stream 240p without pausing during the videos. I know it's not my line. It's their servers.

 

[Puiu]

@tony i can play 1080p with the video loading very fast no pausing at all. you are the one with a poor internet connection or at least the IPS you have has some really big problems. (i live in romania). And they can always keep these movies in a seperate line and servers from the normal youtube movies to ensure better loading time. -> you DO pay for them, no?.
I'm sure that this will not fail considering how many pleople use youtube everyday. What i'm most interested in is the prices of new films.

 

[Guest]

totally agree this is going to be a big fail, i don't understand why Google it trying to run many things, search engine, steaming web site, OS, phones, tablets, whats next the Google car. there expanding to fast i think.

and

it could be that either you get on during the time the servers are being hammered with requests because i download @ 25MB/s and sometimes it slows down wen im using 1080p. it aint my grapics. i have 2 gtx 580s sli so it has to be the traffic level over there so its probably not your internet unless everyone on your block is on the web then ya, that well do it.