Panasonic SC-BT230 Home Theater can be a vertitable jack-of-all-trades: this thing plays CDs, DVDs and Blu-ray Discs, but in addition , it has a built-in ipod device dock that's compatible with ipod device, ipod device Touch and iPhone for playback of audio, photographs *and* movies as a result of your household theater program and Television. But wait, there's far more! It also includes built-in amplification, 5 speakers and also a subwoofer for discrete 5.1 channel surround appear, has on-board decoding with the most recent audio codecs (DTS-HD Master Audio, Dolby TrueHD, etc.), does a great job upconverting DVDs to 1080p resolution, streams Netflix, Amazon VOD and YouTube, and carries a built-in FM tuner.

If you would like to use it which includes a cable tv or satellite box, a TV's developed in ATSC tuner or a gaming process, then just plug it into one of the unit's two fiberoptic digital inputs (for full five.1 channel compatibility) or use the one analog stereo input. Set-up is fairly easy: the speaker wires are all included and all are terminated in proprietary, color-coded connectors that plug into the back in the primary unit. I would have liked to see matching colors within the other ends from the cables as properly as on the rear, middle and surround channel speakers themselves, but hey, you cannot have every thing (I mean..
. where would you put it?). No less than the speaker wires are labeled “+” and “-” so you won't be plugging from the speakers out of phase from one another (which can have a nasty effect around the seem). The only other cable television you'll need is HDMI (not included) which connects the technique for a HDTV. Composite and component video connections will also be obtainable for hooking the unit approximately older analog TVs. Using the HDMI cable television connected, set-up was obviously a breeze as the Tv and HTiB method communicated by way of VIERA Hyperlink (far more on that later) to instantly fixed the display screen shape (16:9) and resolution (1080p).

To get a $399 packaged technique (accessible even much less expensive on Amazon) that contains a built-in Blu-ray player, the sound good quality was very much greater than I expected. The bass is solid, if not truly extended and there was incredibly minimal thumpiness or boom. The tiny minor center speaker actually does a pretty excellent job reproducing dialog and the primary front and surround speakers (that are identical to one another, slightly smaller than the center speaker) can fit out a surprisingly higher volume place. “Avatar” on Blu-ray was obviously a sonic and visual splendor with this program hooked as much as a 46-inch VIERA 1080p HDTV. The spoken word was easily audible (whether in English or Na'vi), plus the explosions and gun fire made a deep rumble that actually made our floor shake slightly little bit. The built-in FM tuner must have been a touch thin-sounding with only common reception but for casual radio listening, it gets the work done.

Where by the system has some flaws is in its actual operation, particularly should you commence taking advantage of multiple inputs. Navigating ipod content material, for example, is rather tricky. Inserting the ipod into its dock and hitting the “iPod” button within the remote is uncomplicated good enough, bringing up a songs menu which lists items like playlists and artist selections within the major display screen. The unit's remote may be utilized to navigate through the songs and other content material on your ipod. But to obtain on the higher place ipod menu (in which photographs and movies will also be accessible), you ought to know to hit the “sub-menu” button for the remote. And when you do want to view ipod movies, then you ought to hook up a separate composite video cable television (included) to your Television. Also, picking from the other inputs (besides Blu-ray) may be a chore. There's just a little “Radio/Ext In” button about the remote that cycles over the offered inputs. But it really is slow to lock on incoming signals and the text that seems within the LCD readout within the front of the unit is rather cryptic — “DIG-IN-1″ — huh? You'll be able to also bring up a list of available inputs around the Tv screen, but yet again, this alternative is just not that easy to discover.

And should you hook the unit around a newer Television (from Panasonic as well as other brand names) using the HDMI cable tv, then the HDMI-CEC element (known as “VIERA Link” for the Panasonic) can be both a boon and also a curse. HDMI-CEC can enable you to operate the functions on the HTiB from a TV's remote control (that's handy) but it also creates specified choices for you about how every thing inside the process ought to operate together. For that most portion, this really is valuable (like when you insert a Blu-ray Disc and VIERA Website link on auto-pilot switches the Tv towards appropriate input) but in some situations, it really is annoying, like in order for you to listen to audio on your own ipod device, and then you definitely turn off the Tv, it shuts down the receiver automatically. Doh. This might be disabled (or behavior modified) in either the HTiB or TV's set-up menu, but unsophisticated users could possibly not be able to figure out what's proceeding on.

Boot-up and loading speeds are a bit slower than we're familiar with seeing on current generation standalone Blu-ray players, but definitely more rapidly than the early players. Also, a firmware update that we performed took longer than predicted (maybe 15 minutes?) with very minimal indication of what was proceeding on, other than a green flashing light and “SRD” around the display.

Network set-up for us by way of a wired cable was a breeze (sorry, no built-in WiFi).
The player was ready to have a dynamic address and DNS info create instantly. Our incredibly primary connections to YouTube and Netflix went by means of without the need of a hitch and soon we have been streaming HD movies from Netflix for cost-free (perfectly, free of charge with a Netflix DVD or Blu-ray rental strategy that is).
The “VIERA Cast” button around the remote goes right towards the IPTV attributes (Netflix, YouTube, and so forth.) so individuals should be effortless sufficient for persons to discover.

For the quite tiny investment, this minor HTiB system offers an excellent upgrade to some TV's built-in speakers, although also feeding your HDTV with some fine 1080p HD substance on Blu-ray Disc as well as numerous web-based streaming options. Pandora web audio streaming just isn't readily available yet but should be coming in a long term firmware upgrade. The operational idiosyncrasies are simple enough to have used to, once you figure them out. All in all, it's an great decision for the full-featured but low-cost tiny residence theater program.