Panasonic SC-HT75 Home Theater Package With DVD-Audio But No Video Switching
Written: Dec 17 '02
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Product Rating:
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Pros: Low price, excellent picture quality, easy to set up and use, universal remote, DVD-A
Cons: No video switching, cheap 1-way speakers and passive sub, no component out
The Bottom Line: The Panasonic SC-HT75 is an inexpensive easy-to use and setup DVD home theater system with multitude of features, however...
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| dkozin's Full Review: Panasonic SC-HT75 Theater System |
The Panasonic SC-HT75 is a 5-disc DVD-Audio/Video home theater system that also comprises 5 satellite speakers and 135-Watt subwoofer, Dolby Digital, DTS and Dolby Pro Logic decoders as well as an AM/FM tuner. The DVD changer plays DVD-Video, DVD-Audio, Video CD, CD-Audio, CD-R and CD-RW, discs with MP3-encoded files.
The HT75 is easy to 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, at less than $350 retail, is very low. For this price you even get DVD-Audio!
Style
The changer and the speakers have “silver” finish and look “gold” accents.
Inputs/Outs
There are three audio (analog stereo) inputs – for TV, VCR and AUX so you can connect all your devices to this system to get better sound while watching regular TV or videotape. However, the unit does not perform video signal switching, so you still have to switch the video signal.
For example, imagine you have a satellite receiver/cable box, and a VCR. If you connect VCR’s audio out to this system and DBS/cable box audio out to the system, you still have to be able to switch between video signals for DBS, cable and VCR.
What you can do in this situation is connect (both audio and video) your VCR and the cable box/DBS to your TV and use the TV to switch between them, passing stereo audio from the TV to the HT75.
There is no component video out (but you probably don’t need it since the changer is a non-progressive scan model and the picture quality improvement with component video connection over the S-Video is difficult to notice. Both composite video and an S-Video out are present.
Playback Versatility
Not only this system play DVD-Video, Audio CD and Video CD discs (which you can record on CD-R and CD-RW yourself), but also CD-R and CD-RW discs with MP3-encoded music files. And it plays DVD-Audio (both multi-channel and stereo) and DVD-R.
Performance
Playback versatility aside, the changer excels at playback of scratched discs with no freezing/skipping. And the operation is very quick (the speed, with which the player reacts to your commands). Unlike some DVD players that require prolonged periods of time to jump to the next chapter in the movie or switch to the high-speed scan mode and back to normal playback.
Picture and Sound
The picture quality during DVD-Video playback is excellent. The images are crisp and the object edges are well-defined with no video noise. The VCD playback, however, is much worse because the VCD standard provides resolution of only 352x240 (NTSC) with MPEG1 encoding at only about 1150 kbps bit-rate. 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 encoding bit-rate.
Keep in mind that system uses passive subwoofer, which is certainly not hi-end (after all, the HT75 is so cheap), but still does good job of generating good bass. And it employs 1-way bass reflex speaker design, which by definition cannot provide audiophile sound quality. It is OK for movies and some music listening, but if you want a very good sound system to listen to DVD-Audio, I suggest that you get better speakers.
Features
The system has standard DVD features (repeat play, angle select, language select, subtitle select, parental control, etc.) as well as “resume” function (even after power-off) and time jump, bookmarks, slow motion and fast scan. There is a “Sound Field Control” with 6 presets, AM.FM tuner, “sleep” and “wake up” timers.
You can also program playback from all 5 discs and use the system as a CD-changer.
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 and can control some TVs and VCRs.
Bottom Line
The Panasonic SC-HT75 is an inexpensive easy-to use and setup DVD home theater system with multitude of features, including even DVD-Audio. 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, DVD-Audio playback and one remote to control your VCR and TV with.
However, if you need better sound quality and more video switching options, you may need to look elsewhere.
Recommended:
Yes
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dkozin
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 in Electronics |
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Location: California
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About Me:
I love to push buttons on electronic (audio and video) equipment. It makes me happy.
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