DVD details for for
American History X (1998)

Peter W. Simeon (2 May 1998):
Laser Pacific did again a great job on this dvd, which is almost reference quality. Starting with a really clean print, they managed to produce one of the sharpest NTSC dvds we have seen. Since there are many close-ups, which subjectively appear sharper than long shots, the resolution is really impressive. Color fidelity and especially the contrast range are equally good. What make this dvd only near reference quality, is the grain, which is present in many scenes. It is more visible during the black and white sequences (maybe this was intended), but is also present during some of the brighter color sequences. The compression is very good at about 7.5 MBit/s, but the grain in the source results in some increased digital noise caused by the compression. In rare cases the resolution is a bit reduced while the camera is in motion, but it is difficult to say, whether this was caused by compression, noise reduction (done before MPEG encoding) or by motion blur during the shooting. Compared to the black and white sequences in New Line's Pleasantville (1998) dvd, the black and white sequences in this movie look quite a bit better, mostly because of the much better contrast.

Michel Hafner (29 May 1999):
This is another excellent DVD from the team New Line/Laser Pacific. All aspects of image quality are at a very high level, starting with a clean film master that is mostly pretty noise free (the black and white showing more grain than the color sections except for some stock footage) and stable (the opening credits show some image wavering). Color and contrast are right on target and video artifacts are minimal (there is occasionally a bit of a white outline around some contours (see for example Edward Norton's head starting chapter 12: 1'26") and a bit of aliasing. Compression is very good, distracting artifacts are not present. The most impressive aspect are some of the close ups, which are so sharp that you think you are watching HDTV and not good old NTSC. And I'm talking of a wall size picture here, not a smallish TV screen. In this regard this DVD is getting close to what's technically possible.
This is a very fine effort and the fact that it's for a low budget film that has limited box office potential but actually something to say unlike most well mastered DVDs of the latest mindless blockbusters is very encouraging. More of that, please!
Peter W. Simeon (2 May 1998):
The 5.1 channel soundtrack is as good as the picture. The sound gets high ratings in all departments. The center channel is very clean, which makes the dialogue easy to follow, which is important in a dialogue oriented movie like this. There are not many scenes where a lot of surround sounds a present, but when the surrounds are in action they are very effective.