Is it possible to play 1080p MKV files on iPad2 over uPnP? I have just configured my Drobo FS to be a uPnP server on which I have lots of 1080p MKVs.

My little boy loves his movies (Nemo / Cars / etc), so I was hoping to be able to let him watch them on the iPad streamed from the Drobo.

Am I dreaming the impossible dream here?

Or have I hit some hardware limitation of the iPad and/or the bandwidth limits of my wifi?

EDIT

The files are mostly AVC for video and DTS for audio

EDIT 2

Since I already had plex installed on my iPad (which I bought on iTunes) I re-enabled the software on my PC server and just pointed it to my Drobo movie share. I was really hoping to not have to transcode, but I guess that will have to wait until I've got faster wifi and a more capable tablet ;)

EDIT 3

I was having a play this morning as I would quite like to watch some 720p TV shows I have (stored on my DroboFS) on my iPad2. But it seems I cannot even watch those. About the only things I can watch smoothly are SD AVIs (very low bitrate)
Personally, I do this with a DLNA intermediary running on a Windows machine. In my case I use ZumoCast. It has a server-side component (I run the Windows-based component on but you could use the Mac one if you have a Mac in your house) and then an iDevice player that connects up to it. The server-side component does transcoding on the fly for you and I've certainly been able to use it with high-resolution files that are in MKV containers without any issues.

At its heart, ZumoCast is a DLNA server and client that just kind of keeps it all within the family. The ZumoCast client will only talk to ZumoCast DLNA servers.

There are app store apps that purport to any DLNA or uPnP server for streaming. I have no experience with them though. Some are free so you can try risk-free at least. For example:


AirPlayer
media:connect for DLNA and UPnP media streaming\
GoodPlayer


Those are just a few that showed up in a quick search.

How well they work? Hard to say. It's going to be very dependent on your device and your network. A 1080p video+audio stream over your WiFi network might push it to the limit. Add transcoding and resolution downsampling (your iPad 2 only has 1024 x 728 pixels so it has to resample 1080p content to fit it on the screen) on the iDevice and you may not get the greatest viewing experience.