Best Workaround to Play H.265 on Surface Book/Surface Pro

Microsoft Surface book and Surface Pro (2/3/4) are the devices for people on the go all the time. Whereas, when you try to play new codec H.265(HEVC) on Surface Book or Surface Pro, issues always around you:

Q1: Surface Pro HEVC support

I have downloaded 1080p movies encoded in the new h.265 (HEVC) format on my 1st gen Surface Pro. I read online prior to getting Windows 10 that HEVC/h.265 will be supported. I now have Windows 10, but when I go to play the videos it plays, but just the audio. My question is, is it the Surface that isn't compatible with the HEVC movie, or is Windows 10?

Q2: Issues running HEVC (h.265) video on Surface Pro 4

I'm not very technically savvy so please forgive and faux pas in terminology. I'm trying to run HEVC (h.265) video via Kodi on my Surface Pro 4. The video files are mounted on a network NAS that my son has set up. I have a Lenovo Tablet running on Win10 that can do it with no issues but my Surface simply crashes whenever I try.

Q3: Surface Book i5 h265 in VLC

Hey, so I just got my Surface Book i5 without a dGPU. I tried to watch some FullHD video encoded in h265 8bit via Handbrake in VLC but the CPU usage ramps up to at least 40% and sometimes even 70%. I tried activating DirectX (DXVA) Hardware Decoding in the VLC-settings but it does not work either...

As many guys complained, eve they download and install the 3rd-party video players like VLC and MPC-HC on Surface Pro or Surface Book, but it's still hard to run H.265 files. The main reason is that decoding H.265 is CPU intensive, which caused the playback issue. If you don't wanna do any complicated settings, a quick solution here is to convert H.265 to H.264, then it would be easy for playback on Surface Pro or Surface Book.

Now point here which is the best tool to trasncode h.265 to h.264? Overall, Brorsoft Video Converter is considered to be the best choice for you.

This software is a powerful H.265 encoder, decoder and converter. It can help you convert H.265 to H.264 video for easy playback with Microsoft Surface. At the meantime, it can also help you encode non-H.265 videos(MKV, H.264, DivX, AVI, WMV, MOV, MXF, MPG, MTS...) to H.265 files if you want. It's easy to use, and performs professionally. What's more, this video converter severs as a wonderful H.265 video player for you. And with the built-in video editor, you can personalize and retouch your videos in clicks. If you are running on Mac OS X, you can get Video Converter for Mac. Download the program and learn how to change H.265 to H.264 video seamlessly for Surface Pro 2/3/4 and Surface Book.

Steps to Decode H.265 to Surface Pro/Surface Book

STEP 1. Add H.265 videos

Run the H.265 video converter program, go to the menu bar, select Add button to select the H.265 files you want to import. You can also directly drag the video files to the program for conversion. It supports batch conversion so you can import multiple files at a time.

STEP 2. Choose H.264 as output format

From the drop-down list of " Format" > "Common Video", you can select H.264 Video(*.mp4) as the target format.

Tip: Advanced settings You can change the format parameters by click the Settings bar. The video size, video encoder, frame rate, bit rate, audio encoder, channel and more other parameters can be adjusted in this Settings option.

STEP 3. Start conversion

When all the settings are done, click the Convert button to start decoding H.265 files for Surface.

The conversion time depends on your video size, computer performance, output settings, etc. Generally, it won't take too long. After the conversion, you'll get resulted H.264 videos for better enjoyment on Surface Pro, Surface Pro 2, Surface Pro 3, Surface Pro 4, Surface Book.