DVD details for
Ronin (1998) More at IMDbPro »

Michel Hafner (April 21 1999):
With MGM you don't know what to expect. Some of their DVDs are very good, others rather disappointing. If you are disappointed with this DVD edition of "Ronin" though, as far as image and sound quality are concerned, consider yourself a very tough customer. There is very little to criticise here. The film master is in very good shape, but could have been a bit cleaner. The bitrate is a meager 3.5 MBit/s average. Despite that, the compression is excellent, or should I say, "la compression est très soigné?" High marks for DVCC on this job. Nonetheless a higher bit rate would have helped, since there are a few minor artefacts. Some of the fine detail in textures occasionally gets somewhat blurred and there are a few instances of compression noise. It's slight though, and probably imperceptible on most displays.
Color rendition and contrast are first rate and the images are practically noise free. The sharpness of this 16:9 transfer is very good. Video artifacts are no problem either. There is some mild aliasing (except for one instance at chapter 20: 5:13, which is pretty strong and probably also affected by a compression problem) and a bit of ringing around contours. All in all this is an excellent DVD and we would be very happy if all new releases were of such high quality. There is also an alternative ending, which was recorded at half resolution and with a superimposed time code.
Peter W. Simeon (April 21 1999):
As the picture, the 5.1 channel sound of this DVD is also first rate. This is one of those disc, which you will often want to use to demonstrate your sound system to your friends. The sound mix is very dynamic and also almost perfect in all other aspects. But the best things are certainly the surround sound effects. Especially during the car chase scenes this movie makes heavy use of surround sound. You hear cars (and other objects) all around you. There are also some very good back to front (and vice versa) sound transitions of passing cars. In other scenes there are very nice atmospheric sound effects to support the mood of certain scenes. I can only recommend this DVD. It's technically first rate and also has some interesting supplements like the alternative ending and, of course, the audio commentary.

(1998) John Frankenheimer's lean, tough thriller of an international team of mercenaries hired to steal a mysterious but well-guarded brief case in Paris and discover they have competition, gets a new edition in a 2-disc set features all new supplements. Robert De Niro stars as the veteran leader and Jean Reno, Jonathan Pryce, Natascha McElhone, Stellan Skarsgard and Skipp Sudduth co-star.