Issue with some m4v files attempting to load into TV App (Catalina)

[SKYLANE]

After success in recovering well over 800 inadvertantly deleted files from a hard drive, I began loading them into TV App on a 2011 Mac Mini Server (Catalina 10.15.4).

I was successful in loading all those files accept for 49 files. Amazingly enough, the challenging 49 files are from 5 specific categories: Harry Potter, Star Trek movies, Pirates of the Caribbean, and Lord of the Rings to name a few. The file format of all the files are m4v with origins from files that came from DVD, BRD & TiVo by making their way through rippers and handbrake.

Interesting in Harry Potter that 1 of the 8 HD files loaded and all 8 SD files loaded, but not 7 of the HD files. None of the Star Trek movies loaded, mix of HD and SD files, same with Pirates. When I view files in a folder, I can see the ICON on all the movies that loaded, not on the ones that will not load. When I select Get Info in Finder, the files that loaded show a view of the resolution of the file, which does not show in the 49 files.

My first reaction is that these files were corrupted during the Data Rescue 5, which is a possibility. However, they all play just fine in VLC. Before I let these files go and possibly re-rip them, I was wondering if there was any simple process that I could try to bring them back to usable for TV app.

Thoughts?

[MrNoBody]

shot in the dark...
Try making a copy of one M4V file @ random and change the extension of the
copy to MP4; then see if it plays.
http://fileinfo.com/extension/m4v

[SKYLANE]

MrNoBody

As I mentioned in my initial post, the m4v files in question all work fine in VLC. They just won't transfer like all the others did into TV App.

So, taking your advice, I changed the m4v extensions to mp4 on a few of the files. Each one of those that I changed also worked in VLC. Unfortunately, they don't transfer into TV App either. I tried even on a different user account in Catalina, no go.

Interestingly, these all worked fine in the iTunes Library in High Sierra. I could change my MacMini back to High Sierra I suppose. However, I am not sure that will fix the problem if the files were corrupted through the recovery process.

I wonder if there is any sort of "re-save" feature in HandBrake that I could run them through. That is a shot in the dark, don't know if something like that is possible.