Panasonic SC-PT650 Home Theater System

sounds good enough but input is 2-ch stereo only

Strengths: nothing special - just does what it's supposed to.

Weaknesses: -stereo (2-channel) input only, so the only thing you can actually use the surround speakers for is playing DVDs -will not play region-free DVDs

Summary: I'm taking this system back and getting something that has inputs for other sources of digital audio. It's irritating that I can't take advantage of the surround sound capabilities of my game systems or a good satellite/digital cable receiver. It's obviously got the digital decoder built-in, so how hard would it be to ad either a co-ax digital input or an optical input?

Also, when playing back a region-free DVD, it will output sound but no picture. Had I instead backed up my whole DVD collection as "multi-region" rather than "region-free" I might not have this problem, and maybe there's a work-around, but the lack of digital input has already turned me off of this system so I'm not willing to waste any time figuring it out.

Maybe this isn't a big deal to someone who only cares about 5.1 audio from their DVDs, but I bought an HD set and surround system for gaming; I don't even watch TV and I don't watch movies very often.

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Hard working, low cost, good sounding system

Strengths: Very compact Sufficient sound DVD HDMI Upconvert Decent Features

Weaknesses: One set of inputs for L/R sound only, incredibly irritating. Speakers come with wires but they are not removable. Volume control is via button instead of a jog wheel or knob.

Summary: 2008-04-24 19:06:07 Overall the system sounds very good for what it is and what it costs.

It makes for a great low budget home theater. Targeted towards those who just want to hook it up and have Digital Surround. There's nothing complicated about it other then learning all about the remote.

Also a fantastic Bedroom/garage system. If you're at all a techophile you'd probably best look at piecing together some components over this, but if you're on a budget this is a great alternative.

There are portions of the system that seem a bit on the cheap side. An example is the way the subs plastic meets up with the wood it's attached to. Also, I mentioned the non removable speaker leads. To most this will be fine, to me it was incredibly irritating.

Summation:

Don't let it's diminutive size fool. You're getting ample bang for the buck.

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