Surface RT and playing media from external CD/DVD drives

Question

What do you recommend if you I want to watch my DVD movies on my new Microsoft Surface tablet? It’s really a new tablet and finds no guide to tell how to transfer DVD movie to the tablet for watching, any of you can help?

Answer 1

Actually, unless someone releases a driver for an external BD player (unlikely

to happen) AND someone releases an ARM compatible program with CODEC support for

Blu Ray (also unlikely to happen), you will not be able to do this on a RT

device like Surface. Unlikely because Surface does NOT have the video horsepower

for Blu Ray.

Even on x86 Windows 8, there is no built in or Microsoft add-on for Blu Ray

codecs. You would need a third party program or something like the VLC Player -

but this is not applicable to Surface.

Barb

MVP - Windows Entertainment and Connected Home

http://digitalmediaphile.com/

Please mark as answered if this answers your question

Answer 2

Surface Windows RT with external DVD player attached at the USB port.  Unable to play movies, cds or load applications.  Is there any way to make any of these things work?

Unfortunately not, applications won't work because Windows RT runs on ARM processors rather than x86 processors. Movies and CDs would require the programs to have access to the drive itself which would mean that drivers would need to be available for ARM devices.

Answer 3

That is software that controls that and not just the drive.  PowerDVD Mobile is about the only thing that will work with the RT and is very, very, limited but has the decoder codec needed for DVD playback.  Do a search in the Store for "PowerDVD Mobile".

There may be a few others added so check further in the Store.  You may be able to do a search for "DVD playback" or something along that line.

Answer 4

No decoder codec.  For Windows 8 to include the regular versions, Microsoft did not pay for the license of the decoder and people will have to rely on their own means of watching DVD movies.

The only real program that will do it for the RT is under development and not available yet.  It is called VLC.  There are fake VLC work-a-likes in the Store and those don't work.

You will have to wait for that.

You can do a search for "VideoLAN" which is their home web site if you want to keep track of it.

Answer 5

I can't comment on the problem with your mp3 freezing, I have had my Surface playing music for an hour or more from my server based library but I was working on the system so it stayed awake. I have however had it stop as well.

As far as Office is concerned I would agree that MS has completely missed the limited resolution with touch, only basic WP is viable and although I have not done much it the way of spreadsheets I have had to do that with my Apple Mighty Mouse, ironic isn't it?

If  you are happy with my original post please mark it as an answer

Answer 6

You cannot play Audio CDs on the Surface, it has no software which understands Red Book standard Audio CDs so it has nothing to do with drive compatability.

As far as I know all music players on the Store are also MP3 based so the only option is to use another PC to rip the Audio cd and read the MP3 files on the Surface. I could be wrong as new Apps are being added all the time.

Answer 7

a lot depends on the wireless external hard drive and how you stream. you

probably will not be able to use the metro/modern/windows 8 style apps like Xbox

Music/Photos/Videos to stream or access, but you should be able to access/stream

from the classic desktop's libraries/explorer interface. if the wireless

external drive is not on a windows pc, it probably won't easily be indexable

either.

please provide more details for more specific information.

Barb

MVP - Windows Entertainment and Connected Home

http://digitalmediaphile.com/

Please mark as answered if this answers your question

Answer 8

Get a USB dvd player.. normally the newer OS has its own dvd decoder to play.. try it out n tell us!

Also they're cheap and returnable..

Answer 9

Get a USB dvd player.

I did. Although the Surface RT can access files on both CDs and DVDs, it can't natively play music CDs nor movie DVDs.

If you want to watch movies on the Surface RT, you need to either stream them or pick up a program that converts them to a file format the Surface can play, usually MP4.

Answer 10

Get a USB dvd player.

I did. Although the Surface RT can access files on both CDs and DVDs, it can't natively play music CDs nor movie DVDs.

If you want to watch movies on the Surface RT, you need to either stream them or pick up a program that converts them to a file format the Surface can play, usually MP4.

Hmm wonder why they didn't make available a MCE optional update for like 49.99..  oh well !

Answer 11

DVD and CD players need software and codecs that decrypt and play the audio and video. These software and codecs are not included with Surface for Windows 8 RT. The DVD player is also probably installed with a generic USB driver, which also plays a role in this limitation.