Panasonic SC

We know you love AV receivers and amazing speaker systems almost as much as we do, but we can’t help but suspect most of you will shy away from spending £3,000 on audio equipment. That doesn’t mean, however, you won’t relish the opportunity to enjoy tasty surround sound from your Blu-ray movies. Roll out the red carpet and strike up the band, then, for Panasonic’s new all-in-one home cinema systems.

The SC-BT735 (pictured above) is the high-end model in Panasonic’s new range of Blu-ray players with included speakers. It costs £700 and has quite a few appealing features. The new speakers look excellent — much more slender and stylish than last year’s range. The system also scores by including HDMI ARC, part of the 1.3 spec that allows audio to be sent back from the TV to the home-cinema system. Doing this means audio from your HDMI 1.4 TV — from Freeview HD, for example — can be processed by the 735 and pumped to its speakers.

Also present is Panasonic’s VieraCast feature, which enables you to view YouTube videos and other online stuff via an Ethernet connection and a simple onscreen menu. VieraCast has the potential to really impress us, but it does need more content — the current UK selection isn’t that expansive. Panasonic has also taken care to make sure the BT735 produces the best picture quality, using its experience from making Blu-ray movies.

The £500 SC-BT330 offers the same features as the 735, but uses bookshelf speakers for the rear-effects channel, which might suit people with limited space who want a more compact speaker solution. In a similar vein, the £450 SC-BT230 reduces the size of all the included speakers to bookshelf size, but keeps the other important features such as VieraCast and Blu-ray profile 2.0 support.

At the lower end, we find the £400 SC-BT222 offers 2.1-channel amplification, but drops support for BD Live and VieraCast. 2.1 systems are still a great way of coaxing better sound out of your Blu-ray movies in smaller rooms, or for people a bit more skint.

All these systems are listed on Panasonic’s Web site as being available soon — hopefully we’ll have full reviews shortly.

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Panasonic SC

If you’ve long wanted to get into home cinema but haven’t had the motivation, you might find the switch to high definition is a good time to get involved. At least, that’s what Panasonic is hoping with its SC-BT100, a Blu-ray home cinema system with 5.1 surround and a bunch of wonderful trimmings.

We’ve always been a fan of simple home cinema systems. No one will pretend you’re going to get the best quality high-end sound, but as far as simplicity and value for money goes, they can’t be beaten. Especially if you lack the expertise and inclination to spend hours putting together a top-notch setup.

What makes the BT100 ideal is that it also offers a step up to Blu-ray while at the same time offering 5.1 sound. There’s an added bonus too — you can add an extra pair of optional speakers to turn the whole thing into a 7.1 surround sound system. Now that’s the sort of flexibility we like.

It’s also worth pointing out that there’s the option to use wireless rear speakers with the BT100 as well, via an optional kit you have to buy separately. If you want 7.1 surround wirelessly, that’s possible too, but you’ll need two sets of wireless receivers and speakers to do it. We think wireless speakers are the future, as it saves all that messy arguing with your other half, who almost certainly won’t want you trailing cables all over the place.

In the box you get four satellite speakers, a centre channel and a Kelton subwoofer, which Panasonic reckons produces some of the best bass about. The Blu-ray portion is fully-featured too, offering profile 1.1 support, 1080/24p playback and deep colour. There’s also some impressive audio support, including Dolby TrueHD and DTS Master Audio, there’s Dolby Digital (obviously) and PCM uncompressed audio, which Blu-ray discs often support. You also get something called ‘whisper mode surround’ which is designed for late-night movie viewing without attracting the attention of the local constabulary.

The system can also be connected to your iPod, a feature that will appeal if you’re one of the trillions of people that has bought an iPod in the last few years. The player will also upscale your regular DVDs to 1080p via HDMI, which makes sense given how many DVDs there are knocking around the planet.

There’s no price for the SC-BT100 yet, but it should be available in the UK from June, when we’ll be reviewing it. –Ian Morris

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