The Vodafone has a blocky, heavily MPEG encoded video quality that is visibly lower in quality than broadcast (be it Sky or Freeview). Channels appear to be streamed to the device at around 6mbps, which is roughly equivalent to what a DVD can do – but the Vodafone spreads this over an HD image (for HD channels). Now, while it is possible to achieve decent quality with those settings with modern codecs, it’s something that really should be spec’d up in the future (luckily, that’s a server-side change that can improve all boxes in the field – although it would require beefier servers to handle the increased transcoding, so... cost..).

Presumably, it’s pulling down 1080p from HD sources, versus the 1080i from broadcast channels – but that’s little comfort when the bitrate is so low: hell the trailer I’d made for Terminator: Dark Fate is encoded in 8.5mbps and that was to save space + bandwidth on my web server (admittedly with a far smaller audience than Vodafone though). You can mitigate this a little by dropping the resolution on the device itself to 1080p and letting your TV do the upscaling (my Panasonic has an MPEG remaster mode that reduces the obvious blocks), but side-by-side Sky wins here.

Now, the hardware is capable of doing 4K + HDR from other sources (Netflix / Youtube), but if the primary use case is for broadcast TV, expect a visual hit. At least, until Vodafone hire me to advise on the technology side of things.

Whether or not you notice is another question. I certainly do, but apparently no-one else that has reviewed the unit has (or cares enough to review more than one aspect of a product – a modern conundrum for another time). I suspect most people will fall into the ‘meh’ category, and that’s fine, there are other concerns at play – but even my wife (who normally wouldn’t mind if there’s a minor visual aberration) questioned why it looks so crap.