The "Mad Men" in 4K on HBO Max Debacle

Summary

Reader warning: there's gonna be a lot of pretend puke photos in this post.If you've fired up HBO Max recently, you've probably seen that one of the most influential and prestigious television series of all time was to premiere in 4K on the streaming service. The show's first four seasons were shot on film, and the final three were shot digitally on the Alexa, but the run of the series was mastered in 1080p HD. HBO Max has been touting this 4K "restoration" of the series, produced by Lionsgate TV. The highly anticipated 4K debut of the show was to be one of HBO Max' crown jewels of television history. It looks like it might initially serve as a cautionary tale of quality control when it comes to restorations and the technical process of bringing shows to streaming.As far as I can tell, Paul Haine was the first to notice something weird going on with HBO Max' presentation. In one of season one's most memorable moments, Roger Sterling barfs in front of clients after climbing many flights of stairs. As a surprise to Paul, you can clearly see the pretend puke hose (that is ultimately strapped to the back side of John Slattery's face) in the background, along with two techs who are modulating the flow. Yeah, you're not supposed to see that.It appears as though this represents the original photography, unaltered before digital visual effects got involved. Somehow, this episode (along with many others) do not include all the digital visual effects that were in the original broadcasts and home video releases. It's a bizarro mistake for Lionsgate and HBO Max to make and not discover until after the show was streaming to customers.I want to be clear that this is a separate issue than the "reframed original film negative for 16:9" issue that has plagued many restorations that have left viewers scratching their heads. In those cases, the shows were originally shot on film and presented in 1.33-to-1 aspect ratio, but for their HD restorations the studio decided that their shows ...