4K remaster of 'Mad Men' has numerous issues, including film crew inclusion and digital visual effects errors

A 4K remaster of the TV drama series ' Mad Men ,' which depicts the advertising industry in New York in the 1960s, is now available on the video subscription service HBO Max . Despite its immense popularity, the 4K remastered version distributed on HBO Max has been criticized as a failure.

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According to filmmaker Todd Vaziri, the first four seasons of Mad Men were shot on film, and the last three were shot on the Alexa digital cinema camera. The series was streamed in full HD (1080p) until its conclusion in 2015, but HBO Max has remastered the series in 4K and will begin streaming it in December 2025.

Vaziri said he had high hopes for the 4K remaster of Mad Men, saying it 'would have been one of the highlights of HBO Max.' However, he concluded that the restoration and streaming process made it a failure.

Paul Haine was the first to notice something strange about the HBO Max version of Mad Men, writing on Bluesky, 'HBO Max has released the 4K remaster of Mad Men, but there's a glitch in the scene where Roger vomits an oyster. A film crew member holding a vomit hose is visible on the right side of the screen.'

HBOMax has started showing a 'remastered' 4K Mad Men and they've messed things up so during Roger's oyster vomit scene you can now see the crew men with the vomit hose on the right

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— Paul Haine ( @paulhaine.bsky.social ) December 2, 2025 20:28

'It's odd that Lionsgate and HBO Max didn't realize this mistake until after the original was released,' Vasili said.

Vaziri also points out that this is separate from the 'problems that arise when reframing the original film negative for a 16:9 aspect ratio.' For example, if the original work was shot in an aspect ratio of 1.33:1, changing the aspect ratio to 16:9 when creating an HD remaster can result in objects appearing that should not have been present. Mad Men was also originally broadcast in an aspect ratio of 1.33:1. However, the original version was mastered in 16:9 from the beginning.

If you compare the same scene in the Blu-ray version and the 4K remastered version, you'll see that the angle of view is the same, but the film crew is not present in the Blu-ray version.


'What's interesting about these restoration errors is that they allow us, the audience, to see exactly how much digital visual effects are used in a show like Mad Men, where most people assume they don't use them,' Vaziri said. 'In this scene, not only have the film crew and the hose been removed, but they've digitally altered the vomit to make it look like it's coming out of the mouth.'

Mad Men has made several such edits. In Season 2, Episode 4, digital visual effects were applied to outdoor store signs, but these corrections were left unapplied in the HBO Max version. This, Vaziri points out, makes it clear that the filming location is Los Angeles in the 2000s.


Additionally, in the HBO Max version of Episode 1, there is a scene where a completely black screen appears for a few seconds, whereas in the original version, the 'Mad Men' logo appears.


In addition, the scene where the mistake was pointed out has been corrected to match the original version at the time of writing the article.