about to give up : (

[K4ot1K]

I was really looking forward to my Surface. Even stood up for it in a few chat rooms. But, now that I have had it for a few weeks, I am ready to give up. The reason I bought it was to integrate with my XBOX. It takes FOREVER to connect by smart glass, if it connects at all. XBOX Music and Video are completely useless so far. If I put music on a SD card it doesn't show in the app, so I put it in the music folder and suck up HD space. And no I don't want a work around, sick of those. I just want it to work. I can't connect to XBOX music online because it says I am using the maximum number of devices, but when I go to my account I show ZERO devices. The phone support told me they are not handling Win 8 problems, to use the online chat. My wait time has never been less than 180 minutes. I am not waiting 180 minutes for a 5 minute chat session. I can't get any of my Amazon videos to play even though they are the same file format. I can't get any other video to stream to the XBOX unless it is something I shot myself with the Surface. I bought this to integrate with my XBOX, and so far it has been a total waste of money, my Android phone does my Integration with my XBOX better than this, and plays everything I throw at it.

 

[illidanx]

I was really looking forward to my Surface. Even stood up for it in a few chat rooms. But, now that I have had it for a few weeks, I am ready to give up. The reason I bought it was to integrate with my XBOX. It takes FOREVER to connect by smart glass, if it connects at all. XBOX Music and Video are completely useless so far. If I put music on a SD card it doesn't show in the app, so I put it in the music folder and suck up HD space. And no I don't want a work around, sick of those. I just want it to work. I can't connect to XBOX music online because it says I am using the maximum number of devices, but when I go to my account I show ZERO devices. The phone support told me they are not handling Win 8 problems, to use the online chat. My wait time has never been less than 180 minutes. I am not waiting 180 minutes for a 5 minute chat session. I can't get any of my Amazon videos to play even though they are the same file format. I can't get any other video to stream to the XBOX unless it is something I shot myself with the Surface. I bought this to integrate with my XBOX, and so far it has been a total waste of money, my Android phone does my Integration with my XBOX better than this, and plays everything I throw at it.

Then probably windows and microsoft are not for you.

 

[K4ot1K]

Well, just got the new up date. The onscreen key board will now not sty on the screen. It pops up and goes away. And I love Windows and Microsoft. Been a supporter from the beginning. But for the money I spent on this tablet I shouldn't have to do work arounds for simple things like play a video.

 

[J515OP]

Sorry to hear about your issues. Part of the problem is you aren't simply trying to play a video. You are trying to stream a video to your Xbox. You have an account that is having issues outside of anything to do with Surface (still MS related though). You are lacking patience with a first generation device that never offered seamless Xbox integration. Many devices do not even offer the option of having an SD card whether that means creating a proper link to your files (not actually a work around just proper procedure) or accessing them directly from the card instead of using a dedicated media app.

Honestly these are little things and if you don't want to deal with them, then that is your personal choice. However, even with an iPad you still need a compatible receiver device to stream via Airplay or to download the appropriate Android app to connect to your Xbox. You still can't add a micro Sd card to apple devices and it is not supported on many Android devices either.

Customer service is what it is. Unfortunately that is frequently not up to par with many companies. If you wait for improvements and can get somebody in customer service that can actually help it seems your largest issues will be solved. What you are really frustrated with seems to be things surrounding Surface not the Surface itself. In that case maybe you are better off coming back at v2 or v3.

 

[TeknoBlast]

I've used Smart Glass on the Surface, Windows Phone, iPod Touch, and on the iPad and can honestly say....each device takes a while for it to connect, it's not an instant connection.

As for music and videos on the SD card, all you have to do is mount the card and then add a new directory to the library, DONE. Didnt take me more than 3 minutes to do that. It's not a work around, it's a one-time process that works.

 

[ZachBui]

if you need help on getting the sd card to work properly we can help, or you can pm me too. But alot of the things above pm wjat J515OP are good points.

 

[K4ot1K]

As always, I appreciate the advice and support. The thread is mostly a rant. I am just very frustrated with how this is not coming together. Maybe I had too high hopes for the Surface and thought it was the Microsoft answer to the iPad. My friend has seamless integration between his iPad, iPhone, Apple TV and all his Macs. I was just hoping for something similar in this package. I actually love my Surface, but right now I get a lot more cross functionality out of my Android phone. It connects to my XBOX very fast, plays everything, transfers files to my laptop flawlessly. I use Winamp pro and it picks up all my media on the HD and the SD card with no issue. I just want to get my Surface to this level. The first thing seems to be to get my Surface showing up as a device in my XBOX Music pass account. I pay every month for it, and never het to use it. Maybe someone has an idea about how to fix this, so I could at least start downloading and playing music.

Thanx for the responses to the rant.

 

[ZachBui]

I'll give the music pass account a go and tell you my results =)

 

[J515OP]

I wish I could offer a solution to your account issue but I don't have one right now.

As far as the frustration, just keep the following in mind... What could iPad 1 and Xoom (the first official Android tablet with Honeycomb) do in their ecosystems? Pretty much just use phone apps and the rest of the functionality was all added later. Yes, the market has shifted and these have come to be expected features of new devices and ecosystems but it still takes a first generation platform time to get there and the Surface RT hasn't even been out 3 months yet.

If you can hang in in there give it sometime. If you have decided the Surface RT isn't for you right now, you may want to try the supposedly coming 7" Xbox tablet instead. Otherwise wait until fall of next year, see how MS tablets are doing and if the Tegra 4 Surface is coming out. By then you should have a very good idea if the Surface RT is going to integrate the features you want.

 

[ZachBui]

the device won't show up unless you downloaded something it seems. I bought a song from my win8 desktop, and from there the song will show up on the surface. From there, I could right click the song and download it.

 

[Arctherus]

I keep all my music on my sd card, no need to keep it on the HD

 

[Rallicat]

I think there's a general set of problems here that -as others are pointing out- are more generally applicable to Windows 8 / RT, not specific to the Surface. You could get any Windows 8 or RT PC or Tablet, and still have these problems, so, this sort of issue is not Specific to Microsoft Surface, but Specific to Windows 8 / RT.

If I'm understanding it properly, you have these problems:

1 Xbox SmartGlass won't connect up properly, or performs slowly.
2 Xbox Music and Xbox Video apps won't let you sign in because of an account issue
3 You are having problems putting media on the SD Card
4 You're having problems with certain video formats

Problem number 1: I agree, Xbox smartglass performance needs major improvement. I'm assuming what you're wanting to do is stream music / video to your Xbox over the network. Personally, I have used this feature without too much trouble, but there are circumstances in which it won't work. (you can't for example stream rented movies to your Xbox). This is an area where Microsoft need to get things tightened up somewhat, but it's anyone's guess as to whether they will focus on delivering such improvements, or whether we'll have to wait for the next Xbox for real change.

Problem Number 2: Account issues ... I feel your pain. It can be hard to find the right place to get things done. All I can say is that it might be allow easier to try and find the right account portal online than wait for the PITA support reps to help you! Try xbox.com , zune.net , account.microsoft.com profile.microsoft.com and commerce.microsoft.com - have a hunt around. Getting this issue sorted will likely be a good idea in the long run anyway if you're a Windows & Xbox user.

Problem Number 3: This is another area where again I agree there is an issue. Microsoft have built a new, friendly, simple UI in Metro, and not having to worry so much about where your data is stored is supposed to be a part of that. File libraries is how this is achieved, but the fact that SD cards can't be easily and quickly added to these libraries is silly. I know you don't want workarounds, but the workaround for this one does work - check out the 'guides' section of this forum.

Problem Number 4: When it comes to video formats, there is allot that the in-built Video app will play, but of course there is always going to be something you can't play. If you were on a desktop machine, you'd probably quite happily fire up something else to play it .. like VLC perhaps. This is Windows RT however, and if you need something else to play your media file ... you're going to have to search the store for an App. That might sound like a cop-out answer, but keep in mind that Windows RT tablets (and this applies to iPad, Android etc) are /appliance/ style computing. They're extensible yes - but they're also locked down to preserve the overall performance and stability of the device.

It sounds like you've run into a number of problems that are unfortunate, and I'm sorry you feel the Surface is a waste of money. I would ask you to perhaps have a think about the many other areas of this tablet where you might find it compares pretty favourably against the iPad, or Android tablets. Over time I have little doubt that some or all of the problems you're encountering will get ironed out - it is still early days!