| Early Adopters Pick: April 2003. This home theater system includes the world's slimmest 5-Disc DVD changer, as well as a six-speaker system. The SC-HT700 handles the audio end of a home theater, giving you surround sound decoding, amplification, and playback through a specially matched six-speaker system (left, center, right, left and right surround, and low-frequency subwoofer). The five-disc carousel system's DVD-Audio playback makes it adept at music as well as movies, offering super high-fidelity (192 kHz/24-bit) sound. DVD-Audio discs provide multichannel and stereo sound, incredible storage capacity, and unique bonus materials not available on regular audio CDs. DVD movies will look and sound great through the system's 54 MHz/10-bit video decoder, video depth enhancer, progressive-scan video output (for use with high-definition and HD-ready televisions), and Dolby Digital and DTS discrete 5.1-channel surround decoding and rendering. Progressive scanning, referred to as 480p for the number of horizontal lines that compose the video image, creates a picture using twice the scan lines of a conventional DVD picture, providing higher resolution and sharper images while eliminating nearly all motion artifacts. The speaker set includes four satellite speakers (front and rear left and right) powered by 45 watts each, a 90-watt center-channel speaker (critical for handling most of a movie's dialogue), and a powerful, 170-watt subwoofer specially designed for unobtrusive placement. All speakers are magnetically shielded to protect your TV from distortion induced by the speakers' magnetic fields. In addition, a digital-synthesized FM/AM tuner lets you listen to your favorite radio stations. |
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 Great Home Theater System |
| Review Date: April 30, 2003 |
| Reviewer: L. Peterson, Austin, Tx USA |
| We purchased the Panasonic SC-HT700 last week so I can only give you my initial impressions of the machine. First let me say that we are extremely happy with our purchase. This system replaced a stereo, dvd player and sub-woofer that we had been using for quite a few years. This sound quality of this new system is far superior to what we had been listening to for both DVD's and Music. The system comes nicely packaged in a fairly large box, it is well organized and comes with everything you should need to get up and running. While I was shopping for a home theater system I had discovered that this unit was a bit different than most, part of the electronics for the unit apparently reside in the subwoofer, there is a special fairly heavy electronics cable that attaches the control unit to the subwoofer and then all of the speaker wires attach to the subwoofer along with the power cord, the special cable is probably about 8 feet long so if you are considering this unit you may want to keep this in mind, the sub will have to be within about 8 feet of the control unit and all of your speaker wires (including the center channel) will attach to it. Depending on your room and where you want to place your components this may or may not work for you. For me this was not a problem, I did give a bit of thought to the fact that if anything ever goes wrong with the sub it will probably render the entire unit worthless. Once I had the unit installed and the speakers all hooked up I pulled out the manual and remote control, the manual is very good, it is well written and easy to understand, the remote is a universal remote and while it will control my TV the buttons are small and it is a bit confusing. There are more functions on this unit then I will ever use. The on-line information that I found (not much since this unit just came out) while I was researching this unit was not always correct on every feature, I happen the have a VCD (predecessor to DVD) and this unit plays them fine, this was not listed anywhere that I could find. The speakers also have brass threaded inserts in them so that they can be mounted to brackets, the on-line information indicated the speakers did not have these inserts. Once again, we are quite happy with our purchase, if I were doing it again today I would purchase the same unit. |
I researched Bose, Sony, and this One.....THIS ONE WON
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| Review Date: July 31, 2003 |
| Reviewer: Elmer and Allison Valle, Hamilton, Ohio United States |
| My last home theatre was a Sony 5.1 Dream System Surround Sound with DTS, 300 Watts, satellite speakers, etc. After a year I needed to upgrade to another system. Here was my 3 top choices. 1. Bose 3-2-1 System...
2. Sony DAV-C990 DVD Dream System...
3. Panasonic SC-HT900...
4. Panasonic SC-HT700 After much research on all three. The Panasonic HT900 seemed to be the best choice, since that had progressive scan, 600 watts, a 5 disc changer, and great reviews on amazon, epinions, ask jeeves, and every other website. But for [the price] it was a good deal. I did not like the tower speakers when I looked at them for myself... They were made of cheap plastic and most of the tower was useless. They were lightweight and were easily toppled (especially if you have pets or kids). The Bose had a lot of system bugs still encountered by many buyers. Bose DID NOT have progressive scan and not a true surround sound and the price was way HIGH ... I did not see a lot of good reviews on the Bose. Also no disc changer. The Sony at first was my top choice since I knew the quality in their Trinitron TV's and because I owned an older Dream System that was great. But once again for [the price], this did not have the 5 disc changer. Finally I checked out the little brother of the Panasonic HT-900 the HT-700. The only difference is that this system does not have the speaker towers. Instead they have the modular satellite speakers. Also at $300 it was cheaper and had all the features of the HT-900 such as the 5 disc changer, 600 watts, progressive scan, etc. I decided to buy this one. BOTTOMLINE: This was a GREAT and ECONOMICAL PURCHASE. The sound is crystal clear, the subwoofer has active bass, and the satellite speakers give true 5.1 surround sound. I cannot rave enough of this HT-700 system. Save your money and buy this sytem instead and spend the extra $$$ on DVD's, CD's, and the component cables instead. But don't take my word on this. The Average Rating speak for themselves. Thanks |
Great budget-priced system
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| Review Date: June 30, 2003 |
| Reviewer: Par4DaCourse, Honolulu, HI |
| I just bought this unit for my father-in-law (Father's Day gift). The value is just incredible! A 5-disc changer, AM/FM radio, progressive scan DVD, Dolby digital 5.1, DTS, and various CD formats for [this price]! Most importantly, it's simple enough for my dad to use all the features. It's very easy to set up and easy to use. Everything you need comee right in the box. Even the speaker wires were pre-stripped. If your TV has component video inputs, I recommend using component video cables or a S-Video cable instead of the RCA cable that was included. (Has anybody tried using a RCA audio-video cable as a component cable? Other than the color on the plugs, heavier guage wires and hefty price, I don't know if there is any other difference.) The remote control takes a little getting used to. The volume buttons are left-right rather than the up-down that you would find on most TV remotes. There's a lot to say about the all-in-one design. Simplicity. One hint... do not connect the audio to the tv audio in. That way, when you play DVD's, you don't have to mute or turn down the TV volume. OK. It does not give you that ear splitting train crash or the earth shaking rumble of Black Hawk helicopters. Nor do the strings of the violins in Pacabel's Canon in D Major resonate in your living room. If you want that, keep on looking, but hang on to your wallet when you see that comma in the total price of those systems. |
Great Sound, nice to look at
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| Review Date: June 8, 2003 |
| Reviewer: MP3 Guy, Mars, Pa. USA |
| I have had this sytem for about two weeks. It is my first home theater system and let me first say that the difference from a traditional TV set with speakers is incredible. The subwoofer is just enough for my room which is 19 x 14. The speakers, which have to be displayed around the room are nice looking and can fit on a wall without being noticed. The remote has a lot of features many of which I may never use. It took me about 5 hours to set everything up and that included running the speaker wire under some baseboards. They give you a lot of wires and verything fit nicely. I am very pleased. |
Can't get more bang for the buck.
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| Review Date: June 6, 2003 |
| Reviewer: Henry H. Pan, Sammamish, WA United States |
| I'm not an audiphile, but this system seems to sound very good to me - especially for the price. I had been looking at systems for the last few months, and most of the lower end HTIB systems were missing one feature or another. This unit plays anything I throw at it - even plays our home-burned DVDs flawlessly. Future compatability is guaranteed with progressive outputs too. A great deal, with a full set of features for much less than you'd expect. |
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