This isn't a pogoplug issue really.
The media players support only some types of video and the pogoplug is just providing files. the closest thing I can relate it to is your average word document, great if you have word they work fine, but if you use say open office or just notepad, things can seem fine but some bits are not right. read a word document in notepad and its a mess, read it in open office and the words are great but the macros won't work. Video is the same the iPhone for example has a very limited ability to play video. It's fine with mp4 and flv but there is no xvid support. likewise the PS3 supports divx but not mkv.
The pogoplug isn't to blame for this, it's doing it's job but the media player isn't.

Sorry to play the correct game, but there seems to be a common theme to the transcoding issue.

Transcoding is turning one video format to another.

Pogoplug provides a transcoder but this is for convenience not because of the pogoplug.

A UPNP or DNLA device is designed to find UPNP/DNLA servers.
The file playback is down to the player. This means if it doesn't support the file being provided then it won't work. for example I have an Xvid file and the pogoplug provides the server for it, my PS3 which can play Xvid files plays it from the pogoplug fine, the xbox 360 which cannot play Xvid files surprisingly cannot play this file. In this case if I used the pogoplug transcoder I can turn this file into a file both can play.

DNLA/UPNP is not a magic weapon in this if the file is unsupported on a player, streaming it won't fix that.

DNLA is an alternative to the likes of samba for providing files. It is a standard only for providing the files to a playing device. not for playback.

As for ps3/Xbox firmware, they already support the standard that is DNLA and all new firmwares will do to help the issue is add new filetypes they can playback.

This really isn't a pogoplug issue as long as your DNLA device see's the pogoplug and any files on it then it's job is done, the rest is down to the player. The only argument to be had is wether the transcoder should have been provided in the way it has. I think it should have been a separate app or a cloud service to make use of some bigger processing power, but that is a cost issue.

Something like El Gato's Turbo264HD pluged into the pogo would be cool.

You can use the Pogoplug drive program and then watch the video on your computer using whatever player you have on it.
The transcoding helps for phone or browser viewing.

Place Shifting Enthusiasts

Okay, thanks to Brendon C and Rock for the reply. Brendon C, good call on the drive program. I was over thinking the problem.

Rock, I have been using Handbreak. but when you have 2TB of video, it gets to be a little crazy. So, through my craze, I found a way to make most types of video work with no decoding/transcoding down time (as long as you are in a wireless network). It was right in front of my nose.

Tversity (http://Tversity.com) is a program that uses ffdshow (http://ffdshow-tryout.sourceforge.net/) which is a program full of codexes to decode video on the fly. Which means no Handbreak Downtime. Tversity can be used on most devices such as phones and gaming systems. I have been using it forever from my laptop and it works great. I dont know why i didnt think of it sooner, but now that i have a pogoplug i must have been too busy figuring out all it does to make rational thought.

Here goes, if you use the Pogoplug drive program to make the Pogoplug show up as a drive in MyComputer, you can access it in TVersity. TVersity can from that point stream the videos from the pogoplug, just like it was when the HDDs were hooked up to my laptop, to anything in the wireless network such as gaming system or phone. This is great for home networks for obvious reasons.

Now, just to find a way for TVersity or something like it to broadcast over 3g for downtime with my phone at work.....

And also you do not need a pogoplug to do this. I can use Tversity straight from a computer on your network. It makes the pogoplug obsolete.

Dreamer_uk said: This isn't a pogoplug issue really. The media players support only some types of video and the pogoplug is just providing files. the closest thing I can relate it to is your average word document, great if you have word they work fine, but if you use say open office or just notepad, things can seem fine but some bits are not right. read a word document in notepad and its a mess, read it in open office and the words are great but the macros won't work. Video is the same the iPhone for example has a very limited ability to play video. It's fine with mp4 and flv but there is no xvid support. likewise the PS3 supports divx but not mkv. The pogoplug isn't to blame for this, it's doing it's job but the media player isn't.

Going to have do disagree with you Dreamer.  On the PS3, streaming .avi/divx files still requires a transcoding process, which is very annoying.  I have two 2tb drives that are clones of one another.  One plugged directly into the PS3 plays all my movies.  Try and play them through the PP and god only knows how long it will take to play.  I have yet to sit here and stare at the screen long enough to wait for it to transcode.

I agree with original poster, this needs to be fixed.  

There is a setting under "media settings" to disable full transcodes. This feature is useful if your videos are already in a format that the pogoplug can read. I do this and all of my videos stream great to my computer over the internet and also my ipod touch 2G.