M4V files only show up as audio, not video

#1

I just got done ripping my entire DVD collection of Doctor Who and was really excited when I returned home with my WD MyBook Live 2tb tonight.

However, after having copied all the content to the Shared Videos directory to test out my content, it appears that both itunes as well as my PS3 will only read the .M4V files as ‘Music’, but of course, being that the episodes are between 700-800mb each, it only sees ‘84mb’ of data, which is not relevant to the actual file.

Why would my devices see the .M4V files as audio and not video?

I compressed the videos using handbrake for Mac, and copied over to itunes directly shows my videos without fail, as well as VLC.

Thanks for any input!

#2

So, I somehow got it working.  Here is what I had in mind.

I went through a couple message threads and had an epithany; what if I was to force the Media Server content from the ‘Public’ shared folder to only scan and share the ‘Videos’…and there we go, stream works.

I’m going to be working more on this unit as the days go by, I have close to 1.2tb of content I need copied over (overnight), but we’re hoping on having ALL out content available regardless of the medium using it.

So, I have a couple users created already, and have a Time Machine kicking right now for the wife.  I’ll also be copying our entire catalogue of music and pictures up to it, in hopes that when we decide to use the Media Server (DLNA) it will display ALL the content, in its appropriate sections.

I guess the question remains:  Why were my devices picking up the .M4V files as audio content rather than video?

Thank you! (I hope this thread will help with those that have this issue)

#3

That’s a good question…  

But there might be a better workaround.   M4V is kinda an Apple-specific file extension.   You might try just renaming the files to end in .MP4 instead and see if that changes the bahavior.

#4

I thought the same thing.  I can try a couple in another share with different settings and see what happens.

I’ve already provided the media sharing on a folder based search pattern, I’ll keep it this way for now (i.e. restricting a video search through site:9000 to a specific folder, the portal works well)

I’ll try and post my findings.

PEACE