I made a simple but effective ( for me ) discovery this week-end.  I’d been ripping some of my DVD’s with Handbrake ( so that i can put the physical DVD in storage, and clear some room ), and was uploading the m4v ( default settings in Handbrake ) to my DLink NAS ( model 321 ).

Unfortunately, the only way i could see the movies, was via a samba share.  The TV couldn’t see the movies (but had no problem seeing the NAS ).

The solution is simple, rename the m4v file extensions to mp4.

It’s that simple. Hope this helps someone else.