Video App - playing videos from a NAS device

[flynch]

I am using the Video app that comes with the SP. I am using it to play videos that are located on my NAS device. When I navigate to the directory that contains the videos, Win 8 does not display the names of the individual video files. It does show an icon for each video and the little "play" button but the name of the file is not displayed.

If I select each unnamed file (by touching it), the system does show the name in the resulting popup.

It seems to be files with the mp4 extension that have this problem.

Anyone else with the same issue?

 

[flynch]

Oops I made an error in my previous post:

The problem seems to occur with files with the "mv4" extension not "mp4" as I said in my email above.

 

[Jay Slasher]

Its probably to do with a codec issue within the video's app. You're better off navigating to your nas drive via windows explorer and playing your videos with VLC. The native apps are going to have these types of restrictions however thats the benefit of the windows side to the surface pro.

Hopefully that helped.

 

[slvrdrgn123]

Can't wait til VLC comes out with a touch based player for the new UI. VLC on the desktop is a pain sometimes.

 

[Mr.NK]

Do you stream over DLNA/UPNP? In this case, the video-player tries to read the information tagged into your mp4. If there's no information the app (multimedia8 does this too) shows only "Video". Suggestion: Tag your Video properly with some program (like tag&rename) and everything should be fine.
Or try MediaMonkey - but in my case it's a bit buggy.

 

[motobojo]

The video player app that comes with the SP is rather limited and annoying. I'm using VLC (desktop v 2.0.5). It seems to play a broad range of video file formats. I have many file formats and I haven't run into any fails yet with VLC. It also works fine with network-resident files and files on microSD and USB storage devices. I wish their Metro/Modern/Win8 touch-aware app version were available.

 

[drksilenc]

Install CCCP and use Media player classic. It supports everything that vlc does and it works for touch inputs for the most part.

 

[CrazyT]

I use XBMC to stream movies and TV shows from my network to all my devices: HTPC, Surface Pro, and Nexus 7. Handle everything like a charm.

 

[jeffskent]

I believe that the .mv4 suffix is used by Apple iTunes for its own proprietary codec format. I just tried to use vlc desktop to play an iTunes .mv4 video and it wouldn't play. No error message, but only a small picture rather than the video. When I selected "play with iTunes" option, it plays flawlessly.

 

[heed]

I run Plex server on my media server (they also have NAS versions) and then stream to the Plex W8 app. It is absolutely awesome. Moved to that from XBMC which took continual "tinkering" to keep running well and looking good. Give Plex a shot!

 

[joga]

+1 for Plex

I stream movies from my Mac Mini running Plex Media Server to my clients running Plex Media Center. It's amazing...

Be sure to have a small power horse as Media Server if you want to stream and transcode big HD files to your Plex clients.

 

[heed]

+1 for Plex

I stream movies from my Mac Mini running Plex Media Server to my clients running Plex Media Center. It's amazing...

Be sure to have a small power horse as Media Server if you want to stream and transcode big HD files to your Plex clients.

Mine is a Pentium D 820 (dual-core Prescott from a long time ago before Core2Duo's, etc.) and it works like a champ. It can do 3 simultaneous SD streams while transcoding an HD file on demand for my wife's iPad. I'm amazed at how well it works with old hardware!