Disapointed with Surface video streaming

[SteelSteve]

So I've had my Surface 2 for about 6 months now, and I have been unable to stream any of the movies I have on my DLNA server to the device. I have tried numerous apps from the apps store, with no success. To make matters worse my wife's iPad, and son's Galaxy Tab2 along with all other devices in the house (including 2 Windows 8 PC's) stream just fine. I thought it may have just been mine, except that my brother in law got a Dell xps10 Windows RT tablet for Christmas and he has the same issues. It's not like I'm using some bizarre format, all movies are MPEG's. Am I doing something wrong? Is there a place to download codex for the Surface RT and Surface 2?

 

[daniielrp]

What app are you using for streaming? Is it the same app as on the iPad/Tab?

Personally I use Plex and it works flawlessly.

 

[kundas1]

I use my Surface 2 for streaming things ALL THE TIME, I have no trouble at all! BUT I stream everything through my homegroup which is all connected together and on my network? maybe your DNLA is the problem?

 

[godashram]

yes, tell us how you are streaming and some of the specs on the file yous are streaming (720p or 1080p etc, dlns server type, bitrate, file type/size, apps used, connected at b,g,n; etc...etc...etc)

since you are using dlna, depending on where and how you are serving your files, the dlna server could be transcoding your files on you android and ios devices, but attempting to play the original file on your surface.

 

[SteelSteve]

On devices like the iPad I use 8Player, on the Windows PC's I've tried apps like Metro Media Player Pro and Cyber Link Power Media Player. Both work on PC but when I download them on the Surface 2 I get an error stating basically that the format is not supported (Metro Media players exact message is "an error occurred while trying to play media. You may be missing a required codec"). Videos are rip'd and streamed from my DLNA server as follows:
I use a program called DVD Catalyst (great app), to RIP my DVD's. Per the author of that program I rip them utilizing his "Tivo" format which encodes it as MPEG2_mp2 with a screen res of 720x480. Since I am the one who showed my brother in law how to do this his are also rip'd and encoded the same way. Is there a better way?

 

[kundas1]

I would suggest ripping em in mp4 format and see if that works... which I know it should work, cuz that's what I play all the time...

 

[EDRo]

What app are you using for streaming? Is it the same app as on the iPad/Tab?

Personally I use Plex and it works flawlessly.

Same here... PLEX is awesome! I have two servers up and running now. One on my laptop and one on my desktop PC. Nothing like having hundreds of 1080p movies ready to play on the Surface 2. I have the PLEX client apps on both my Surface 2 and my Lumia 1020.

 

[compnovo]

I use Handbrake (free, and great) to rip movies to the mp4 format and they stream and play flawlessly on my RT. I do the ripping on my desktop computer, connect via our home network, and use the Microsoft movie app on the RT.

 

[WillysJeepMan]

Same here... PLEX is awesome! I have two servers up and running now. One on my laptop and one on my desktop PC. Nothing like having hundreds of 1080p movies ready to play on the Surface 2. I have the PLEX client apps on both my Surface 2 and my Lumia 1020.

Another vote for PLEX. It just works.

I use Handbrake (free, and great) to rip movies to the mp4 format and they stream and play flawlessly on my RT. I do the ripping on my desktop computer, connect via our home network, and use the Microsoft movie app on the RT.

And a vote for Handbrake. If your ripping movies on OSX, I'd recommend using Subler. It adds metadata tags to the files so that they appear in iTunes just like media purchased in iTunes and it shows up correctly in PLEX too.

 

[JesseDiaz]

Ive been using Plex for years on by TV, Roku and iPhone...FLAWLESS! So when I bought the SP3, it was a no brainer! So I purchased it and find that after about 30 seconds, it starts skipping....
I updated the graphic driver, uninstalled the updated WIFI drive., reverted to old and manually updated again ( suggested to resolve WIFI issues ) but still the same results.
I even connected to a 2.4ghz connection since the WIFI issues on the SP3 seems to be on 5ghz networks...still nothing
Anyone else experiencing this?

 

[EMINENT]

Another vote for Plex. It just works.

 

[jnjroach]

Ive been using Plex for years on by TV, Roku and iPhone...FLAWLESS! So when I bought the SP3, it was a no brainer! So I purchased it and find that after about 30 seconds, it starts skipping....
I updated the graphic driver, uninstalled the updated WIFI drive., reverted to old and manually updated again ( suggested to resolve WIFI issues ) but still the same results.
I even connected to a 2.4ghz connection since the WIFI issues on the SP3 seems to be on 5ghz networks...still nothing
Anyone else experiencing this?

I haven't had any issues with the Plex Client on my SP3. What are you using for your Server?