Providers of satellite, digital and interactive television today offer users more and more convenient options for integrating several frequently used devices into a single control environment. MTS was no exception. The set-top box includes a universal remote control. It can manage more than just the device offered by the provider. The remote control for the MTS set-top box can be configured so that it transmits signals to a TV, optical disc player or audio center. Simple instructions on how to activate control modes are included in the delivery package of equipment from MTS.
Review of the MTS TV interactive set-top box: Attraction of operator generosity
It’s hard to suspect me of loving camera devices. For as long as I can remember, I have been fighting against “free” routers, and before that I was dissuaded from buying branded smartphones. Yes, of course, saving is sacred, but if it devalues the whole point of a new thing, then what is the point of it?
But nature has become so clear that I with a clear conscience recommend taking a closer look at the new operator device - an OTT set-top box for a TV, which MTS began selling in its showrooms in June. This small but very useful box, being decorated with a logo with an egg, has radically lost in price, but has retained all the user functions. Today this is the cheapest way to qualitatively add intelligence to a TV in the country or at home. So high quality that you can sometimes forget about the built-in Smart TV.
Iron
At the end of last year, the ZTE B866 TV set-top box appeared on Russian shelves. It runs on a fairly recent (penultimate) version of the Android TV 9 platform, and inside it is a relatively old (2016) but peppy Amlogic S905X chipset. The prefix cost 6 thousand rubles. In December 2019, they asked for about the same amount for a Xiaomi Mi Box set-top box with similar hardware. Compared to quite numerous analogues, the ZTE product stood out only with a more recent version of Android TV (competitors usually have 6.0 or 7.1), which did not contribute much to sales.
I don’t know who agreed with whom, but on June 1, B866 appeared in MTS stores with a logo on the case for 2999 rubles. For the same price, in at least some official retail you can only buy absolutely terrible boxes with primitive chipsets and an ancient version of Android TV.
Business colleagues grunted grimly at this price. The fact is that the Amlogic 905X chipset, despite its age, remains very popular and in demand. The quad-core Cortex A53 with a penta-core ARM Mali-450 GPU easily delivers images up to 4K with support for 60 frames per second. And, of course, HDR10. The wholesale price of one chip is $15. That is, a thousand rubles are spent just on it, but you still need to solder it on the board, add connectors, a housing, a power supply, fill in the firmware, package it, and deliver it to Russia. Plus, the kit includes a fairly advanced remote control that works via IR and Bluetooth. According to the most minimal estimates, the cost of the set-top box is 2,500 rubles. Taking into account the minimum margin of ZTE, MTS gives the set-top box at zero. Well, I hope they manage somehow.
The set-top box has 2 gigabytes of RAM (this is a normal amount for this type of device) and 8 gigabytes of flash. The latter is quite enough to install applications (more on them later), but if you decide to use the set-top box as a player, the storage will have to be expanded. Fortunately, this is easy to do: there is a slot for microSD cards up to 64 GB and two full-size USB 2.0 ports. You can connect flash drives and external hard drives.
To connect to the Internet, you can use a 100-megabit Ethernet port or a dual-band Wi-Fi module with support for 802.11ac. If you are the owner of an Android smartphone, the initial setup can be completed with virtually no interaction with the console remote control: your Wi-Fi account and password will be transferred to it directly from the phone.
Bluetooth is built into the remote control not only for comfortable control when the set-top box is not in line of sight (for example, behind the TV), but also for issuing voice commands. The built-in microphone allows you to radically reduce the time it takes to search for the desired content in applications and YouTube. It is difficult to underestimate this opportunity. I'd say there's simply no better way to navigate the sea of content on Android TV. Huge saving of time and nerves. For set-top boxes for 5-6 thousand rubles, a microphone in the remote control is the norm, but for 3 thousand, go and find one. I note that such a smart remote control separately costs 600-1000 rubles on Aliexpress, and up to one and a half thousand in domestic stores.
In general, the hardware part already strongly induces one to buy a set-top box. But it is very useful to check how functional the control software is? As practice shows, crooked hands can ruin the impression of even a very smart piece of hardware.
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MTS TV and everything, everything, everything
When we turn on the set-top box, we are greeted by the MTS TV shell. The main page contains Greatest Hits according to the owner of the service, but I didn’t stay there for long and immediately went through the rubricator.
The “TV” tab offers you to watch broadcast channels. The first 20 are free (you just need to register via mobile), the rest are by subscription, of which there are quite a few.
It is interesting that all traffic that is generated within the framework of MTS TV services is free within the operator’s network. And this also applies to the free twenty channels. I didn’t really believe it and decided to experiment. I took a Saratov MTS SIM card (and this is happening in Moscow), where no traffic packages are connected at all, inserted it into a TP-Link mobile router, connected the set-top box to it via Wi-Fi and had a great time watching the cartoon “Shrek Forever After” on STS. In total, this took about three gigabytes of traffic with an average flow rate of 6 megabits per second. Probably, in the city such tricks are not very necessary, but outside the city, where the Internet is often not completely unlimited, the savings will be very useful. You can even plug a USB modem into an old router with an MTS SIM card with a near-zero tariff, and they will work perfectly with the set-top box.
The TV channel rubricator is not only thematic, but also, so to speak, of high quality. That is, you can select only HD or only 4K channels. There are not enough of the latter yet, only three of them, but there are already dozens of HD ones. As for subscriptions, there are many different ones, and it is better to look at them on the MTS website. Yes, if you have already subscribed to something on other devices, everything will work here without additional charges.
The Movies tab contains a catalog of – you won’t believe it – films. There are a lot of them there, from all sorts of ancient to new ones. To ensure choice, MTS TV pulls up partner selections - Amediateka, Start, IVI, MEGOGO. All this is already for money and by subscription. It is, of course, a little upsetting - how can I, a free person, pay someone money for pleasure? But the amounts, frankly, are ridiculous, and if you don’t want to bother finding free sources, it’s easier to pay. Well or not.
The same story with TV series: there is almost everything (MTS says that the database, including films, includes 15 thousand titles), and if someone doesn’t have enough, you can install the Netflix application.
Yes, yes, an application. Having rolled out its shell, MTS left Google Play in place, where applications from all content providers are available, including direct competitors - Megafon and Beeline. The application store on Android TV is somewhat different from a smartphone, but still the choice is really large, and with some diligence you can even find a bald devil.
And for the most advanced guys there is the opportunity to install third-party applications. The first thing I did was download the Kodi player, which allows you to play 4K movies on the Amlogic S905X with almost any bitrate (well, without fanaticism, of course). It was not without pleasure that I rewatched “Ford v Ferrari” with a 50-megabit stream. It drags from an external drive without problems.
Online filibusters will definitely ask what’s with the support of software like HD Videobox. You won't believe it, but everything is fine with them too. And even torrents download, it’s terrible.
Total
The metamorphosis from ZTE B866 into a product with a long official name “Interactive OTT set-top box on the Android TV operating system for access to the MTS TV service” was painless. Other than the appearance of the signature shell, nothing is trimmed or blocked. If you want, use MTS. If you don’t want to, well, that’s your business.
The Xiaomi Mi Box S, which is almost identical in filling, costs 5,500 rubles in official retail, and from 4,100 on Aliexpress. The unbranded ZTE B866 costs at least 4,800 rubles.
MTS offers the same thing for 3 thousand. It seems to me that doubts are unnecessary.
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How to control the set-top box from your phone
In order to control from a smartphone, you need to install a special application from the Google Play Store. There are many such programs and it is enough to enter “control of a TV set-top box” in the search. The app store will give you many options. You can install and try several to understand which one is more convenient and comfortable.
In any case, no matter what program is selected, after installing it you will have to perform the following steps:
- synchronize the set-top box and smartphone via Wi-Fi (sometimes possible via Bluetooth);
- configure the application.
For some programs, it is important that they be installed both on the smartphone and on the set-top box itself.
Control depends on the application - some offer the capabilities of a standard joystick and remote control, but at the same time allow you to enter text into search engines. Others provide the ability to broadcast from a smartphone to TV, search for broadcasts, or launch YouTube.
In principle, most applications with good ratings and reviews in the Market combine all these functions.
Setting up the remote control
You can configure the MTS remote control to control several types of devices. Moreover, the setup process for a TV is much simpler for the user than setting a code table for an optical disc player or other equipment.
By manufacturer code
Setting up the MTS remote control for your TV can be completed in a matter of minutes. Modern class devices have hardware that uses one of the standardized control signal code tables.
Important! The set-top box comes with all the data the user needs. This is a directory of codes for setting up the MTS TV remote control, which lists common brands of TVs on the market and combinations of numbers by which the universal remote control is activated.
To configure the MTS remote control using the manufacturer's code, you need to proceed as follows.
- Turn on TV.
- Press the TV button on the remote control and hold it until the LED in the upper part of the case lights up. This happens in about 3 seconds.
- Enter the code of the manufacturer or group of TV models, which is indicated in the reference table. This must be done in 10 seconds.
- If the combination of numbers does not match one of the standard ones, the remote control LED will blink three times. This means that you need to carefully try to enter again.
- When the code is accepted, the LED on the remote control goes out.
Activation of the control signal table occurs automatically after 10 seconds, if after entering the code the user did not press any keys on the remote control.
If the LED goes out and the entered combination of numbers is accepted, just try, for example, changing the volume on the TV. After that they try other buttons. If everything doesn't work as expected, it's worth re-tuning by trying the following code for a group of TV brands from the same manufacturer.
On a note! This method also works on other devices of certain brands. For example, the Samsung company uses almost identical sets of signals to control both TVs and DVD players. Therefore, to configure the appropriate equipment, you can use the data from the reference table provided with the MTS set-top box.
In automatic mode
It is quite likely that the code book for setting up the MTS TV remote control does not contain the digital combinations the user needs for his TV. This is true for uncommon brands, from new brands on the market.
For such a situation, the MTS remote control has an automatic code selection mode. To use this setup method, you should:
- turn on TV or other device;
- press and hold the TV button (or another for the corresponding equipment) for about 5 seconds until the LED on the case begins to blink;
- release the TV, point the remote control at the device and monitor what is happening.
For TVs, the remote control constantly sends a signal to increase the volume, changing the code tables. If there is a match, the result will be visible on the screen. The remote control performs a similar operation for DVD players. A shutdown signal is sent to the audio center in AUDIO mode. The result of matching codes will also be obvious. After successfully selecting the signal table, press the Menu key to save the settings.
In manual mode
When automatically selecting codes, it may happen that the signal table determined by the remote control does not completely coincide with the one used on the TV. As a result, some buttons may not work. Making a repeated selection is at least inconvenient, since the remote control does not display any data about its activities.
To accurately determine the control code table, you can use the manual search mode. For this:
- turn on the device for synchronization;
- press and hold the TV, DVD or AUDIO button on the remote control for 5 seconds until the LED starts blinking;
- press the volume up button - you need to do this in one and a half seconds.
The process of selecting codes is not complicated. The user is only required to press the volume up button at least once every one and a half seconds. At the same time, having seen the reaction of the control device, you can try the operation of the problematic keys and, if necessary, immediately change the code to the closest one.
Important! It is possible to return the signal table if the previous one was more successful. To do this, the user just needs to press the volume down button.
If no operations are performed on the remote control, the indication LED will start blinking. At this time, you can press the volume buttons to select codes. If the user does nothing while the LED is flashing 9 times, the remote control will exit the setup without saving the settings. If the process completes normally, after selecting the codes, you must press the button for the mode being used: TV, DVD, AUDIO.
