Will the Surface 2 work with an external usb cd/dvd/blu-rom drive?

[Cruncher04]

this is only an issue if you want to copy the disc. if he has an external drive and the right software, he can play it. the software comes with the keys necessary to play the disc.

Commercial DVDs are encrypted. Any player who wants to play the content needs to decrypt the video stream before. This has nothing to do with the video codec. As I mentioned before, VLC will not play encrypted DVDs.

As for system-wide codecs shared between apps, I believe the architecture of Windows RT itself makes this impossible and every app has to include its own codecs.

When do people start to understand that Windows RT is just Windows? So it certainly is no architectural problem. It could be a problem of the modern apps API though (WinRT).