Overview
Microsoft Surface is a planned series of tablet PCs designed and marketed by Microsoft. The Surface will be available in two versions, “Surface” and “Surface Pro”. “Surface” will run the Windows RT operating system and use an ARM CPU. “Surface Pro” will run the Windows 8 Pro operating system and use an Intel CPU.
Surface has a 10.6-inch, 16:9 widescreen HD Display , and Surface Pro has a 10.6-inch Full HD Display. They both use Microsoft’s ClearType HD Display technology which delivers a great picture for movies. What’s more, Surface is thin, light and it has a great battery. Surface could not be better to play HD video on the go.
While Micrsoft Zune can only play several video formats like MP4, WMV, H.264 video like any portable devices or tablet. The newly released Surface tablet cannot play any other video format either. It is really fantastic if we can play MKV/FLV/3GP/WebM/YouTube/WTV/MTS/AVI/MP4/MOV/M4V HD AVCHD 720p, 1080p, 1080i videos on Surface or play 2048-by-1536 resolution HD video or 1080p video on the new Surface tablet with ClearType HD Display.
Surface’s native file compatible formats are:
- JPEG for images;
- WMV
- MPEG-4
- H.264
- Avi video (Xvid)
- MP3
- AAC (unprotected) not AAC (.m4a)
- WMA Pro (2-channel)
- WMA
- WMA lossless
Step-by-Step Guide to Convert Video to Surface Supported Formats
This article will introduce a step-by-step guide to play all kinds of SD and HD videos on Surface RT/Pro. It also enables to play 1080p HD video like AVCHD, MXF and MKV on Surface.
This guide applies to:
- Convert various video formats to Surface format on Windows and Mac
- Convert and play 1080p, 1080i, 720p video on Surface RT/Pro
- Convert and play MKV on Surface RT/Pro
- Convert and Play RAD on Surface RT/Pro
- Convert and Play RealPlayer RM, RMVB on Surface RT/Pro
- Convert and play FLV on Surface RT/Pro
- Convert and play F4V on Surface RT/Pro
- Convert and play AVCHD MTS/TS/MOD/TOD on Surface RT/Pro
- Convert and play MPEG on Surface RT/Pro
- Convert and play HD on Surface RT/Pro
- Convert and Play AVI, WMV, ASF, AVCHD, RAD, BIK, DivX, MKV, MOD, TOD, MTS, VOB, MPEG, MOV, MTS, MT2S, RM, 3GP, FLV, F4V, WebM, 3GPP and more on Surface RT/Pro, Windows PC, Mac, etc.
Prepare: Free Download Windows 8 Surface Video Converter – Bigasoft Total Video Converter
Step 1. Add video file
Hit “Add File” button to import video file you want to play on Surface RT/Pro or any Windows 8 tablet
Step 2. Set Windows 8 Surface supported H.264 MP4 format
Since H.264 MP4 format will give much higher video quality and smaller size after conversion and the format has a higher compatiblity, here we will choose H.264 MP4 format for play video on Surface. You can also choose WMV, AVI as the output video if you want. Eespecially, this Surface Video Converter will convert to H.264 video in much higher speed.
Click the drop-down button on the right side of the “Profile” to select “H.264 MPEG-4 (*.mp4)” as output format. Then press “Settings…” button to select wanted resolution like 640*480 or 720*480 or 720*576 from the drop down list of Resolution or define your desired video resolution by overwriting the existing one.
To play 1080p or 720p video like MKV, AVI, AVCHD, WTV, MXF, MPG, WMV on Windows 8 tablet like Surface RT, Surface Pro, select “H.264 HD Video(*.mp4)” as output format from the “HD” category.
Step 3. Basic editing (Optional)
Click “Effect” in the main menu to trim unwanted video and keep the excellent part, crop video to focus area, add watermark and subtitles and so on.
Step 4. Convert video to Windows 8 Surface supported MP4 format
Press “Convert” button to finish converting video to iPad 2 supported video format.