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The HBO Max streaming service is officially available as of last week, but it's lacking a vital feature for modern TVs, that being 4K HDR support. HBO Max launched on May 27, and so far, the result has been a decidedly mixed bag. That's not unusual really, as the launch of a big new streaming service rarely goes off without a hitch. Common to such launch days are issues with buffering, the app going down sometimes, or certain content not playing correctly.

Disney+ experienced a number of outages and errors on launch day, and it infamously took about a month for the WWE Network to get its various streaming issues under control, with many still having problems streaming that year's live WrestleMania event. No matter how much tech is tested, it's hard to fully prepare for the barrage of millions of users that greet any new streaming platform, and it won't at all be surprising to see the same issues happen to NBC Universal's Peacock when it launches in July.

One problem many early adopters have with HBO Max has nothing to do with anything breaking though. Instead they're upset a seemingly standard feature isn't present: 4K HDR support for TVs with that capability.

Why HBO Max Isn’t In 4K HDR At Launch

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While not everyone has a TV that supports 4K HDR, a lot of people do, and the format has become a standard feature of many streaming services, albeit sometimes at an additional cost. Not every program is available in 4K, but top streaming players Netflix, Amazon Prime, Hulu, Vudu, and YouTube all offer a selection of content in 4K or 4K HDR. Disney+ even managed to launch with a selection of titles in 4K HDR, so supporting it right out of the gate definitely isn't impossible. Yet when asked by media outlets about 4K HDR, reps for HBO Max simply said it'll be available eventually. That's not exactly encouraging to those used to streaming in 4k on their other favorite services.

HBO Max has yet to offer an official reason for their lack of 4K or 4K HDR support, but the answer seems pretty obvious: HBO Max's launch was rushed. That conclusion is backed up by other really bad issues involving the new service, such as many of the titles pre-advertised for launch not being available to stream yet, or the damning lack of an HBO Max app for the two biggest streaming devices out there, Amazon Fire TV and Roku. Both those things made HBO Max look really bad, and the lack of 4K HDR just puts the icing on top. HBO Max is a promising service overall, with lots of top-shelf content available and a pleasing user interface. Now it just needs to get its act together in other ways before becoming a true competitor to Netflix and Amazon Prime.

That's surprising...

What's more upsetting is the fact that it should just be on regular HBO. Even though I have HBO, gotta go through some other bullshit in order to watch this series... simply because it's "HBO Max".

I understand why they launched both "HBO Go" and "HBO Now" a couple years back (since it gave access to people who did not want to subscribe to HBO as a premium cable package. However, just now they added yet another service, "HBO Max". Can't they just stick to one of the streaming services OR be rational and add just any "HBO Max" series to the HBO channel itself...

Oh well.

/rant