Turn off Transcoding in your media setting for that drive. The files should then be delivered without transcoding. If this doesn't help contact support.

You aren't going to be able to use your current videos without transcoding unless you have a network that can handle the bitrates at which those files are encoded. It's likely that your local WiFi network can handle those, but if you want to access the files over the internet then you're going to need an UPLINK speed from your ISP that is perhaps twice the bitrate of your files. Many (most?) broadband connections in the U.S. have fairly limited uplink speeds in comparison to the downlink (the latter for downloads from the internet).

For example, I use to have Time-Warner cable and my downlink ran at up to 20Mbps, but my uplink was limited to 350Kbps. That meant that I couldn't stream video out from my home unless the video was encoded below 300Kbps (which means that it had to have very small dimensions -- QVGA -- and/or very high compression rates).

Another issue is whether the video files have been optimized for streaming, you generally want encodings that have been enabled for streaming although I don't think that is an absolute requirement (YMMV depending upon the device and network conditions).

I've also turned OFF the transcoding option in Pogoplug, I convert all of my videos ahead of time using either QuickTime or Handbrake and have multiple versions that are encoded at anywhere from 256Kbps (for playback over the internet using by my ISP's slow uplink) to what I term "unlimited" for use on my local WiFi network (which runs at over 20Mbps for data transfers). I can also report that when on my local WiFi network (i.e. NOT going out over the internet) I can even stream HD video from my Pogoplug Pro to my iPad (the largest I've played is a 1080p clip at up to 5.8Mbps).

Lastly, I have had very poor luck with the iPad/iPhone Pogoplug apps (they crash fairly often and very seldom work for streaming over the internet). However, the Pogoplug website (my.pogoplug.com) seems to work fairly well as long as I keep my video encodings below my ISP's uplink speed (which is currently capped at about 420Kbps).

Parker said: Thanks a lot for the info. I have been converting the videos to mp4 but they will still not stream over 3g. Any suggestions I did the video bitrate at 384. Thanks

Are you using the iPhone/iPad app or the my.pogoplug.com website to view the videos? I haven't been able to get the apps to work over 3G, they work on my local WiFi network but not over 3G. However, my.pogoplug.com works well even over 3G.

My experience has been a combination of the above: I have an iphone 4 and after altering my media settings to "auto-generate full transcode", I was able to play more than the first ten seconds of my files. The only caveat is that this takes a VERY long time to do, and the general consensus here seems to be the same.

I'm going to attempt to use your advice coldfinish--I'll keep you all posted on anything else I'm able to come up with.