Will Pogoplug Video now make cloud video sharing easier?

We've reviewed several iterations of the Pogoplug, a unique and pretty easy-to-set-up device that turns any available home hard drive or USB flash drive into cloud-sharable networked storage. While Pogoplug's features are extensive--existing versions can stream music, movies, and photos to computers, mobile devices, and even the PlayStation 3 and Xbox 360--we found the performance of video streaming to be a mixed bag. Some video files required lengthy transcoding, and others got pretty choppy when played back.

The $199 Pogoplug Video, now available, clearly aims to fix those problems. While it looks the same as any other Pogoplug, Cloud Engines promises that the Video will stream files without any prior transcoding, and will stream "high-resolution photos and videos to most media players."

It's unclear from Cloud Engines' Web site how that "enhanced video optimization" is achieved, but Pogoplug executives claimed in a conversation last year that the Pogoplug Video's processor was significantly improved. We haven't reviewed one yet, but consider our interest piqued. Could this be a better home NAS solution for DLNA streaming? We'll let you know more when we have one in the office to review.

The Pogoplug Video is currently available for sale at Best Buy and Buy.com.