I have a Surface RT, I have an external DVD drive with a USB plug, and I have a DVD (actually, quite a few) that I want to watch on it.
- I don't want to rip or convert the DVD into some other format that I can access from the Surface with a MicroSD or over the network.
- I don't want to put the DVD in another machine on the network and "play to" the Surface
I don't know if either of those approaches would even work, I just think they are unworkable for being tucked up in bed or on the couch and wanting to watch a movie or part of a TV season by popping a DVD into a player. And I know they are unworkable if I'm traveling.
I've tried hooking up the drive and putting a disk in, but it doesn't offer to play it and I can't see any way to request it.
Best Answer
There's no DVD or Blu-Ray playback codecs/capabilities included with Windows 8 RT, and (currently) no add-on ones.
You'll need to rip and convert the DVD's to a format that is playable on the Surface (RT) tablet.
Surface RT inherently supports the following video formats for playback:
There are many utilities out there to do this.