Daring FireballHBO Max Butchers ‘Mad Men’ in Botched ‘Remastering’
https://daringfireball.net/linked/2025/12/02/hbo-max-butchers-mad-men
https://daringfireball.net/linked/2025/12/02/hbo-max-butchers-mad-men
François Kahn@daringfireball No, it's not Warner or HBO Max that botched the episodes. They didn't bother to check them, but the problem is with the original studio, Lionsgate. It looks like LG went back to the original film negative for the early seasons (the crew switched to Arri Alexa and digital during season 5), rescanned them in 4K, but forgot that some shots featured CGI, like mattes to hide equipment or technicians. Hence these blunders. HBO Max simply has exclusive rights on the 4K versions.
Nit@kahn @daringfireball there’s a thread on Bluesky that seems to align with this:
https://bsky.app/profile/tvaziri.com/post/3m6zcqcrzsc2a
Mad Men has been on my list forever. Once they work out these kinks I think I’ll finally get round to watching in 4K.
Todd Vaziri (@tvaziri.com)
This is absolutely real. The current HBO Max version of this "Mad Men" episode "remastered for 4K" did not include an updated visual effects shot, which originally painted out the crew and equipment. Not just that, the HBO Max episode titles/order is jumbled for s01. [contains quote post or other embedded content]
Todd Vaziri