Windows 8 DLNA streaming of MKV files
- by dbb
I have a Samsung TV that is capable of playing MKV files. The Windows DLNA Play To menu that appears when you right-click a media file does not support MKV files, but a simple trick has been to change the file extension from .mkv to .avi so the Play To context menu item would appear. At that point I could successfully stream from my computer to my TV.
However, this does not appear to work in Windows 8. Doing the same thing in Windows 8 causes the Play To window to open but the file does not get played. Dragging and dropping the file in the Play To window causes it to be silently ignored. Using actual AVI, MP4, etc. files works, of course. It appears Windows 8 is now doing some kind of validation on the file that Windows 7 wasn't previously. The Play To window does not show any kind of obvious error message or warning and there is nothing in the Windows event log.
So, is there a way in Windows 8 to stream MKV files to a DLNA device without converting it to another container format?
I would rather not use extra third-party software, but I would consider it if it's purposefully designed for this simple case rather than a more robust "media library/server" solution.