We have been getting numerous reports on our Forum for the restricted error.

Are you suffering from the same issue ?

Several of our forum members had been having trouble updating their Ubox apps. A member discovered that it was because their router was blocking the update.

If your router have the Trendmicro protection enabled then you could try disabling it from the administrative panel fix the UBox update issue.

Are you looking for an substitute to TVPad 4 ? Why not take a look at TVPad 5 ! Or… I mean the BlueTV

BlueTV vs TVPad

Lets find out what BlueTV is all about.

Overview

The BlueTV is another IPTV Android box marketed towards the Chinese speaking crowd. The box is manufactured by the same folks that created TVPad.

The manufacturers had stated the BlueTV will work out of the box for US region without needing any VPN/DNS solution. 

The Package

The BlueTV packaging is pretty standard among Chinese IPTV affairs. It comes with the BlueTV unit, remote, HDMI cable, power supply and a manual. The box packaging is rather plain, almost too ordinary (Perhaps they did this on purpose to lay low from TVB). It is worth noting that the model on the box states M425, following the TVPad model tree.

To no one’s surprise the dimension the unit is similar in size to TVPad 4. The IO ports are in identical position, although the ethernet port is upside down.

BlueTV vs TVPad4 ports

The only thing that sets the BlueTV apart is the remote. It reminisce of a AppleTV remote, it offers a very very simple user interface. A total of 11 useful buttons. Direction input, Enter, Power, Return, Home, Menu, Volume +, Volume -. This remote is definitely the most elderly friendly remote and probably my favourite remote out of all the IPTV boxes. The new remote does work on TVPad 4

BlueTV Remote

The User Interface

Upon bootup, you are greeted by a minimalistic welcome screen similar to TVPad 4’s.

The setup wizard will guide you through the Language, Network (ethernet/wifi) and Timezone settings. Once the wizard is done you will be greeted by a “blank screen”. 

BlueTV Welcome Screen

Similar to TVPad 4, the unit does not come pre-loaded with any apps. It is added via their proprietary app store. The app store is an improvement to the TVPad4’s though. It has a super simple one layer layout, so no more annoying categories to search for apps. The apps selection can be reached by going left or right.

App installation is a breeze, just click and install. Once the app is installed, the icon is immediately placed on the “blank screen”. After that just click-n-play.

BlueTV Blank Screen

BlueTV Apps

BlueTV Apps

BlueTV Apps

BlueTV App Installation

The Apps

The main app for the BlueTV is called Storm TV. It is a consolidation of multiple apps on the TVPad4, 港粵網絡電視 (Cantonese),  寶島電視 (Taiwan), BETV (Mandarin). The layout is a little bit different but you get the idea… One thing you may like about Storm TV is that it does have separate version for English and Chinese. So if you are using the box for elderly parents, this may be a plus.

Storm TV Interface

The app contains sub-categories of  Live, Playback, Drama, Variety, Movie.

Live

For Cantonese the Storm TV line up is basically the same as TVPad 4’s. TVB, TVB News, J2, J5, Peral, VIU TV, RTHK… etc

Since I don’t watch Taiwanese or Mainland TV I don’t know what channels are must haves. But check the video review…

All channels are smooth.

Playback

The playback contains 3 days playback of 34 different channels. See the screenshot below for the channel listing.

BlueTV Playback Channel Listing

BlueTV Playback Channel Listing

BlueTV Playback Channel Listing

Drama (VOD)

The Drama is Video-on-Demand of dramas. There are currently 7 sub-categories. Hong Kong (TVB, VIU TV, etc), Cantonese Dub (J2, J5 Korean/Japanese dramas), China, Taiwan, US (Chinese Subbed ala TVB Peral), Korea (Chinese subbed, not sure where it’s from), Hong Kong Classic

BlueTV VOD Lineup

Variety

The variety category have the following categories: TVB, ViuTV, Cantonese Kids, Mainland, Taiwan, Concert, Cantonese Songs

BlueTV vs TVPad 4 vs HTV3 vs Ubox

Device Comparison

Is this an alternative to HTV ? Possibly… depending on your usage. HTV have more VOD content and tv channels (more English stations). But HTV have recently pulled their main Live tv app from their app store, so it’s a bit of a hassle to install it manually.

Is this an alternative to Moonbox M3S/HiTV? I would say so… It’s a known fact that the Moonbox have problems with it’s apps and also the device breaking randomly.

Is this an alternative to Ubox ? Absolutely! You don’t have to worry about stream going down daily

Here is my personal ranking of these units based on their stability and ease of use

TVPad4, HTV3, BlueTV – A (Super stable and easy to use apps)

Moonbox – C (Average-below average)

UBox – F (Absolutely horrible!)

Should I buy it ?

That’s the golden question isn’t it? I mean after the shenanigans they pulled with TVPad 1-3, should you still be supporting this company…

In my opinion, here’s the bottom line.

1. The streams, VOD contents are top notch. It is among the ranks of HTV. If you want stable streams, this is a unit worth considering
2. The TVPad parent company (啟創科技) doesn’t appear to be going anywhere. Despite what happened to the lawsuits, this company appears to be alive and kicking. Evidently they are basically following what I predicted they would do; rebrand themselves and business as usual.
3. The interface is still among one of the easiest to use for elderly. Especially with the consolidation apps into Storm TV, it just made watching Chinese content a lot easier

Where can I buy it and how much ?

Before considering the price, you must give yourself the expectation that no unit will last forever. This includes TVPad 4, UBox, HTV3, BlueTV, Moonbox… etc.

What I generally advice forum member is to take the unit price and divide by 12 (1 years worth of service). This way you can see if paying $X amount per month for 1 year is worth it in case something happens to the service. Of course, there are chances of the service terminating before the year but that life…

You can buy the BlueTV for only $199 with free DHL shipping at our sponsor cntvpad.com

We highly recommend cnTVpad due to their contribution to the community. Their willingness to help forum members with devices that wasn’t purchased from them is exceptional (Link). Not to mention they are also an authorised seller of BlueTV as well. Which means you won’t get your unit deactivated due to a shady seller.

Looking for another device? Check out our HTV3 Review

Forum discussion ~ http://tvpadtalk.ca/discussion/834/bluetv-review-vs-tvpad-4-htv3-ubox

A few forums members have been indicated their YueTV stopped working over the last few weeks.

For those are having problems, you can try reinstalling the app itself.

Here are the ones that people had good success with.

YueTV 2.3: https://mega.nz/#!DIVWDaqT!ivobQ1wWmsDtdA_C7u-6U2Wn-srJtmZ5hbvOx3tQzWw

YueTV 0.4: https://mega.nz/#!iQ8TzYBC!VdT1b1fj39dbtgnOoSoQhFUgQTMxE1qTj5aFnGBCiJU

If unsure which one you need, check this forum topic http://tvpadtalk.ca/discussion/233/tvpad-4-m418-useful-files-firmware-apps#latest

Here is a short video that demonstrates the Korean Live TV app (Rainbow TV) in action.

The subscription is 3 years for $99USD. You will require a TVPad 4 or BlueTV to run this app.

For more information and discussion on this app, please check our forum -> link

The HTV5 is more of less like the HTV3. I’m not gonna bore you again with a relatively same review. If you are not familiar with the HTV system, check out our HTV3 Review here.

Anyway, onto the good stuff…

The packaging of the HTV5 uses the same premium material of the HTV3. Upon opening the box you are greeted with the HTV5 itself covered by a plastic sleeve (a very nice touch).  Inside you will find the power adapter, HDMI cable, remote and the manual. The remote got a slight upgrade, as the cursor circle is now bigger than before. Otherwise, it remains the same as the HTV3’s remote.

Now I have to admit I’ve never looked at the manual in HTV3, I took a glance over the HTV5 manual and I’ve gotta say I’m somewhat impressed by it compared to other boxes. The English portion is grammatically correct and readable.

One thing I’m not too fond of is the HTV5 no longer use a microUSB for power. Instead, it is using a standard android box power adapter. I definitely prefer the microUSB over standard PA.

Performance

Here is what’s listed in the HTV5 manual

Quad-core Arm Cortex up to 2.0Ghz, ARM Mali-450GPU, 750Mhz for 3d graphics processing (2.5D graphics processor), 4k video decoding support, h265 video format

1GB DDR, 8GB eMMc internal

Wifi + BT

HDMI 2.0

Android 5.1.1

vs HTV3

Quad-core Arm Cortex up to 1.5Ghz, ARM Mali-450GPU, 600Mhz for 3d graphics processing (2.5D graphics processor), Full 1080P video decoding support, h265 video format

Wifi + 3G USB dongle

HDMI 1.4a

Android 4.4

Usage

After playing it with for awhile, it’s clear the upgrade of the Android version is much appreciated. The settings navigation is now much cleaner and easier to navigate. The onscreen keyboard is marginally better.

As mentioned earlier the content is the same as HTV3 so I’m not going into much detail. Since the CPU is running at a high speed, loading of apps will be faster (if that is one of your concern)

Should I get it ?

If you are looking for something to replace your current box then HTV5 is definitely a worthy choice. Reliable live tv streams, and VOD videos. Although their 7 days playback is a flakey at times during their internal updates. Overall, it does get the job done plus more with the increased in CPU speed.

Since HTV has started shipping HTV5 with their orders, if you are looking to buy a HTV now then you would get a HTV5 by default.

Thanks to our sponsor again, you can get the new HTV5 for only 209 and with $10 off at htv-box.com with the coupon TVPADTALK

Over the last few days, we have been seeing reports of Moonbox users reporting their live tv app CherryTV Plus getting replaced by a new live tv app called Seven Star TV.

Information floating around the internet are claiming Moonbox can no long afford to pay CherryTV Plus, so they had to downgrad their live tv to Seven Star TV.

The major difference between the two live tv provider is CherryTV Plus contain thousands of live tv channel, whereas Seven Star only have 300 or so channels, and most of them aren’t working.

Are you affected by this move by Moonbox ? Let’s discuss this in the comment section !

TVPad had released a new firmware 5.066. If you are on firmware 5.054 you won’t be able to perform a OTA upgrade to 5.066. The only way to upgrade to 5.066 is to upgrade your TVPad 4 to 5.060 then perform a OTA.

Here is how you bring your TVPad to 5.06

1. Download this zip but don’t extract https://mega.nz/#!yU9UxaQb!23t-lwa4rWfhlW0BWmyR7Kwf8phhugIwhzIf2qfZeMI
2. Put this zip file on a USB or microSD card then plug it into TVPad
3. On the remote control enter 200981811 and the update screen should pop up
4. Proceed with the update. Once you are on the firmware 5.060 you should be able to receive the OTA update to 5.066

If you are getting no network, then use this page to find a suitable DNS server. (Thanks to cheuk5)

http://www.bestdns.org/for/hk/

Chinese New Year is just around the corner (January 28th), which means many of us will have family and friends over.

By having a working IPTV box can mean hours of entertainment for your guests and less frustration for you as the host.

Check out our new Asian IPTV Buying Guide to see the list of Pros & Cons for the boxes out in the market.

Got any questions ? Feel free to leave it in the comment!

Thanks to benxiong on our forums for providing the package.

Questions and discussions @ https://tvpadtalk.ca/discussion/1071/downgrading-tvpad-4-to-5-054

https://tvpadtalk.ca/discussion/1072/the-conclusion-of-different-firmware

Thanks to our forum member dualmax, we now have a way to bypass the annoying “Restricted” message. All you have to do is connect a mouse to the tvpad and when you see that message popup, just use the mouse and click on the background of the app.

See the forum thread here…

https://tvpadtalk.ca/discussion/1093/get-rid-of-restricted-message-in-yuetv

Confirmed and tested myself

dualmax
4:14PM Flag
I have a way to make your restricted tvpad 4 working again if you have user restricted message. All you need is a mouse, plug in the mouse and use it to click on the app, such as yuetv or others, once the app opens use you remote as normal. strange!

It’s been a while since we did a full review of a device. Ever since TVPad returned back normal, we had only reviewed the BlueTV and HTV5. The Asian IPTV scene had stayed relatively quiet.

We have first heard about the EVPad back in early 2016 via this post by our forum poster (bigpapi1). People have said and believed (myself included) that Evpad came from the same company as Moonbox. However, the spokesperson of Evpad had claimed they are not. Although they are using the same apps (different names).

We won’t be holding any judgement, so… be your own judge.

Anyway, onto the review…

Presentation

The packaging of the EVPad Pro 4k is a standard no thrills affairs., very basic similar to BlueTV’s. Compared it to HTV’s packaging, you will definitely notice the difference of the premium feel.

Upon opening the box, you will see the EVPad itself on the top shelf while the remote and the power adapter on the bottom shelf.

 You will find the following inside.

1. EVPad Pro
2. Remote
3. USB power adapter with cable
4. HDMI cable

It’s worth noting the EVPad Pro does not come with manual. The connection instructions are printed on the bottom side of the box. 

As noted in the video review, I am happy to see this box came with a USB power adapter. BUT I am quite sad to see they are using a standard power supply prong instead of using a microUSB cable to power up the box. I mean… cmon !

The remote is a standard remote you will see with any Android media box. It is very similar to the Ubox 2 remote. The EVpad Pro remote is also capable to program the top buttons.

Connections & LEDs

The EVPad Pro 4k have the standard ports at the back

• HDMI
• AV
• Power
• LAN

On the side you will find two USB ports and a microSD card slot

At the front of the EVPad Pro, you will find 3 small notification LED. Power, Net, IR. The Net LED will flash green when the ethernet is plugged in. The status does not reflect if you have WIFI connection. So the connection status feature is not as functional as HTV’s.

The IR LED will flash amber when remote is pressed.

Usage & Performance

The EVPad Pro 4s is running on Android 4.4.4. Although it’s not a big issue on Asian media boxes like these, it would have been a nice touch for them to at least bring itself to Android 5.

The box itself boot up is quick and runs pretty snappy overall. This unit does have GooglePlay integration.

Upon boot up you are greeted with a simple interface. On the left, there are three basic categories. Desktop, Store, and App.

In Desktop, you can add your frequently used apps for easy access.

In Store, you only get Google Play and the EVPad Store.

In App, you will see all the all apps (including Settings) located on the device. Overall, not much you can customize on the EVPad.

The EVPad app store is your basic affair. You can quickly download and install any apps for it. Although we have to say the EVPad App store is almost if not the same as the Moonbox App Garden. 

Upon installation of any app in the EVPad app store, they are added to the Desktop section automatically.

The Apps

We are fairly satisfied with all the official live tv app bundled; EasyTV (HK/Macau, HongKong Cable, Mainland, Taiwan, Malaysia & Singapore, Japan, Korea, India, North America, Europe, Thailand, Vietnam, Arab, Sports, Movies, Documentary, Brazil),  ETV Pro (HK, Mainland, Taiwan, Movies, Sports), Mainland Live, Taiwan Live, Korea Live, Japan Live.

Most of the Live tv apps load the stream quickly without any issue, streams usually start within a second. But do have the expectation that some non-popular channels won’t work once in a while.

One note worth mentioning is we are quite surprised to see some of the local Canadian channels were included in the EasyTV app (North America).  Stations such as Fairchild Toronto, Fairchild Vancouver, CP24, Omni 1 & 2, CTV, CBC New, CityTV, TSN2, TSN4, SportsNet One, SportsNet West, HGTV, etc…

Major US network such as FOX, ABC, CBS can also be found.

Both Canada’s City TV and US’s TVB HD is listed but the streams don’t work when we tested.

You can see most of the live tv in action in our video review.

For the Vod app, it’s a pretty standard. One complaint we have is the category texts are too big in size to display both Chinese and English. Rendering the English almost pointless. We would much rathered to have a separate app for each language so you can see each category properly. See the comparison between EVPad and BlueTV below. The layout is almost identical but you get a much cleaner look on the single language on the BlueTV vs dual language on the EVPad. Based on the screenshots from earlier version of this app, that wasn’t always the case. So I hope that change it back in the future.

EVPad VOD

BlueTV VOD

Once you selected a video to watch, the selection screen is pretty standard. Nothing much to complain about. We did find the issue of missing episodes. We randomly loaded up a drama (Hong Kong, 2016, 律政強人) and there are only 8 episodes for this series listed. Meanwhile, there is supposed to be 28 episodes. We are not sure if this is just a one-off case, since the other ones we tried all have full episodes. For folks that regularly follow drama series, this could be a potential problem down the road.

For the Playback app, it has 7 days playback (technically only 6days) for lots of channels. the layout is fairly simple to use. During the video review, there were a bunch of channels we weren’t able to get it to load. However, it seems like that has been fixed for majority of the channels. A few we tested at the time of the written review are still down.

The Verdict

The EVPad Pro 4k is an intriguing device. The live channels provide a good amount of content that isn’t available on other Asian boxes without additional subscriptions (Easy TV). Note the Easy TV app is supposed to be 2 years free and after it’ll be subscription based. We don’t particularly have any problem with this as we know content isn’t free. However, this isn’t clearly displayed/advertised anywhere! We even whatsapp’ed to EVPad to clarify and they didn’t respond back to us…

And this is where EVPad seems to start having problem as a company as a whole. One of our forum members had reported the following about their experience with EVPad non-responsive support.

Based on our Whatsapp conversation with them, it seems to align with the member’s story.

Putting the customer service experiences aside, the EVPad Pro 4k is definitely an interesting box. It does the basic Asian content plus more (Live Korean, Live Japanese, Live North American).

Should you buy this as a primary device? In our opinion, No. Due to the facts there are still rough edges on the streams, the app itself and also at customer service (If you intend to provide Whatsapp support, then answer it!).

Should you buy if you only watch Chinese content on the device? In our opinion, No. There are better devices out there that cost roughly the same price.

Should you buy this as a supplemental device? In our opinion, it is a worthy consideration. The added North American live TV channels is definitely a plus.

A few of our forum members had asked about the status of their Moonboxes. Here is what we’ve gathered from the internet

1) All original moonbox apps are dead as for now. Etc; CloudVOD, CherryTV
2) Moonbox is moving to a subscription model.
3) All Moonbox-C models comes with 1 year live tv subscription
4) Moonbox-Pro models supposedly come with 2 year of live tv subscription?
5) The new subscription live tv app is called FastFish
6) The moonbox parent company was reportedly going to close down for business but the owner decided to revived it to goto a subscription based model

**Update April, 20, 2017**
People have reported the new subscription service is not working/not stable.

Got any other news about Moonbox we didn’t put on the list? Leave it in the comments!

The Asian IPTV scene has been quiet for a while now, amiss of the mess Moonbox is going through. Some of our forum members had asked for a new box to buy. Ask and you shall receive!

The Package

In comparison, the FunTV package is well made. The box is made out of hardcover paper for protection and the FunTV logo is clearly printed on the box itself making it easily distinguishable from other generic Android boxes. Features are printed neatly at the bottom side of the box (In traditional Chinese).

The box itself and its accessories are neatly tucked together inside. Everything feels very secure.

You get the standard accessories with FunTV.

• 1 x FunTV unit
• 1 x Remote
• 1 x HDMI cable
• 1 x Power supply with USB -> 5V cable
• 1 x paper manual (in Traditional Chinese only)
• 1 x warranty card

The dreaded USB->5V prong cable is included with FunTV, but on the positive note there is a USB OTG Power in port for USB power.

The Unit

All ports are clearly labeled on the box itself.

On the back you have

• AV Out
• Ethernet
• HDMI
• OTG USB (For USB power)
• 5V DC in

On the side you have

• 2 x USB port
• MicroSD slot

Inside you have

• 2Ghz quadcore Cortext A53 CPU
• 8GB rom
• 4k
• h265 support
• 802.11AC wifi

The Interface

The FunTV user interface is Extremely simple. It has the legacy TVPad look & feel.

All downloaded apps are categorized into the Main section. You then have System, Download, Settings sections.

System->Consist of built-in Android apps

Download->A warning page that leads to the FunTV app store

Settings-> Shortcut to basic system settings such as time/date, system update, etc…

There can customize the section by moving the apps among it.

The Apps

There are four main apps.

Live Pleasing – Contains all live channels. Cantonese, Mainland, Taiwan, Asian-English

Most Playback – Contains 5 days playback for a bunch of channels. A worthy mention is the iCable channels in this app (Not longer listed)

星晨視頻 – Contains Mandarin (drama movies variety), English drama, Japanese/Korean subbed Drama,

粵視界 – Contains all Cantonese drama, movies, variety, Cantonese-dubbed Japanese/Korean drama, TVB anime.

Overall, the apps are well written in our opinion and the streams are fairly stable during our review period.

Final Thought

The FunTV is a fine box for Chinese content. The reliability seems to be as stable as the closest competition such as the BlueTV and HTV5. Everything from Live Tv, VoD and full day playback are on par with other boxes.

We especially like the fact there are some special Cantonese replay channels that no other box has.

One thing that caught our eye is the lack of online advertising this box has. In fact, the only reason we decided to do a review on this box is one of our forum members had suggested this box and they were referred to by their local shop. This appears to be the trend of these IPTV box manufacturers as of late after the big TVPad lawsuit. Are they here to stay? Who knows…

We can say the FunTV is worthy consideration of your next IPTV box purchase for the time being. Check the Video review if you want to check the box in action!

We have gotten a confirmation from a forum member that BlueTV is now working. Which should mean the YueTV should be working as well.

Check our forums for more details on this outage http://tvpadtalk.ca 

Tested a few apps personally.

See our forum link for additional details.

https://tvpadtalk.ca/discussion/1305/tvpad-yuetv-bluetv-outage-update-jun-16-2017

The word on the street right now is the company behind TVPad will stop serving content on TVPad 4 on July 15, 2017.

Based on the information we have currently it seems like the company is trying to go the legit route for the TVPad brand (due to the name being known worldwide), while their 5th generation device BlueTV will continue to work as a “illegal” streaming box.

You can see the discussion and information on in this thread

https://tvpadtalk.ca/discussion/1316/tvpad-stop-working-after-2017-07-15/p1

Ever since TVPad 4 had stopped service earlier this month, people have been struggling to get their streams back.

Our sponsor cnTVPad have now added the subscription service to their product line up to extend your  TVPad 4’s life longer.

Subscription link

The subscription is an annual subscription which will give you access to TV China app. TV China will consist of all the channels and VOD that you enjoyed previously on the TVPad 4

Have questions? Join our forum topic here

Is your TVPad 4 sitting there collecting dust and you want to bring it back to life?

Take a look at our new sponsor Napper. Their service brings over 300 live tv channels back to your TVPad 4 for as little as $5 per month!

https://tvpadtalk.ca/discussion/1362/welcome-our-new-sponsor-napper/p1

The company behind Moonbox had seized operation. Their final move was put out a ransom notice asking for customers’s to pay $15 to use the box they already own.

There are currently two ways to bring your Moonbox back into normal Android operation.

1. Block their authentication server – Block outgoing port 9011 to 50.7.109.99. This method only work with white Moonbox
2. Flash custom firmware onto the moonbox – This only work with m3s, see link here

Have other ideas? Join our forum and let us know!