The Panasonic SC-HT70 DVD home theater system has 5-disc DVD/CD changer, 5 satellite speakers and 90-Watt subwoofer, Dolby Digital and Dolby Pro Logic decoders, tuner. The DVD changer plays DVD-Video, Video CD, CD-Audio, CD-R and CD-RW, discs with MP3-encoded files.

The main advantage of DVD home theater system over the DVD changer/sound system combination is the ease of setup and use. No need to connect DVD player to the receiver, power them up separately and use two separate remote controls. And the price of this system (less than $450 retail) is very low – try to get separate 5-disc DVD changer with features of this one and a separate Dolby Digital sound system with speakers for this price...

Playback Versatility

In addition to DVD-Video the changer can also play Video CD discs (which you can record on CD-R and CD-RW blank discs yourself). You can also play CD-R and CD-RW discs with MP3-encoded music files, however there is no way to program the MP3 playback. The changer plays all files in sequence and you can skip to the next or previous song.

Performance

In addition to playback versatility, there are two other things I like about Panasonic DVD players in general and this one in particular. One is the ability to play scratched discs with no freezing/skipping. The other one is the speed with which they obey your commands.

Some DVD players require prolonged periods of time to jump to the next chapter in the movie or switch into high-speed scan mode and back to normal playback (i.e. Sharp DV600U). Some are very slow when asked to jump to the previous track during CD-Audio playback (i.e. Samsung M301). This DVD player does everything instantaneously as if it could read your thoughts.

Picture And Sound Quality

The picture quality during DVD-Video playback is excellent as well as the sound. The VCD playback, however, is much worse because the VCD standard provides resolution of only 352x240 (NTSC) and uses week MPEG1 encoding. If you don’t plan to burn your own VCD, this should not be of concern to you. Any VCD player does not provide better picture quality, since the bottleneck is the MPEG1 encoding itself.

The system features several DSP modes. Keep in mind that system uses passive subwoofer, which is certainly not hi-end (after all, the HT70 is so cheap), but still does good job of generating good bass.

Style

Everything is silver and it looks good. There are buttons for immediate access to any disc in the changer as well as buttons for basic functions and a shuttle control on the front panel.

Inputs

There is a headphone jack on the front panel. The back panel has an analog stereo audio inputs for VCR, Aux, TV; stereo line output, composite video out, S-Video, antenna inputs. The composite video cable is included, but you should get an S-Video cable if your TV has an S-Video input.

Features

The standard DVD features (repeat play, angle select, language select, subtitle select, parental control, etc.) are supplemented by ones such as MP3 playback, CD-R and CD-RW playback, resume (even after power-off) and time jump, bookmarks, 5 slow motion speeds (no backward slow motion with VCD) and 5 fast scan speeds (up to 100x with DVD and up to 40x with VCD).

All functions can be adjusted through icon-driven menus while the disc is playing (although it takes some time to remember all the small icons. There are “sleep” and “wake up” timers, AM/FM tuner with 12 AM and 12 FM station presets. Speakers are video-shielded and provide up to 30W per channel (with 90W subwoofer).

You can also program playback from all 5 discs and use the system as a CD-changer. And with 3 inputs (VCR, TV and one more source) you can connect all your devices to this system to get better sound while watching regular TV or videotape.

Remote

Another advantage of having a complete DVD home theater system is that remote controls both playback and sound. The supplied remote is quite plain and simple, but functional.

Bottom Line

The HT70 is an inexpensive easy-to use and setup DVD home theater system. It is a great value for somebody with basic DVD-watching (and overall TV sound-improvement) needs. In addition to DVD changer, you get a tuner, CD changer, alarm clock, amplifier and a complete set of speakers, all controlled by one remote.


Recommended: Yes