Home > Consumer Reviews > Panasonic SC-DP1 Progressive Scan DVD Home Theater System

I purchased this unit as a CD player and FM tuner only. I have not yet used the DVD facilities.
This is an attractive system. The unit is mostly metal-cased and solidly built. The front fascia features brushed stainless steel (or at least a very good facsimile of it), a display that looks like opaque chromed perspex when switched off, and a chromed volume control with a quality, 'weighted' feel to it. The build and finish are excellent.
On CD, the sound quality on 'normal' setting is perhaps a little more mellow than you would expect from a jap system at this price, though it is always smooth and well detailed. Switching to 'advanced surround' processing really puts a punch into a normal CD. Vocals can suffer slightly at this setting compared to the original, but listeners tend to say 'wow, that's pretty good!' when you hit the 'surround' button. I expect a properly encoded dolby DVD would sound even better than a CD.
The FM tuner picked up stations easily, and sound quality is very good. The tuner tends to sound quite a bit louder than a CD at the same volume setting.
The volume level for CDs was easily adequate for my room (20ft x 17ft), but if you like your music very loud or have a larger room than this, you may find yourself turning it all the way up on occasions.
Bass is slightly lacking for my taste (though there is an output for a powered subwoofer, which I might well add at some point...). There is little choice but to stick with the supplied speakers, as this is a bi-wired speaker amp, requiring 4 seperate wires to each speaker. The supplied speakers come with only about 5ft of cable each.
The speakers don't ooze the same quality finish as the main system unit. The main problem is the cheap fake wood 'cherry' finish, though they're well constructed. They're a strange stretched octagonal shape (better than it sounds, actually), and look much better with the silvery fabric cover removed. I think they will grow on me, but I haven't seen fake wood that colour since the seventies. Compared to the look of any other speakers I've seen from units around this price, they'll do.
At this price, I haven't heard any mini-system that matches the overall sound quality (apart from a couple that look like scrap left over from a mad max movie.... what are manufacturers thinking?), or build quality.
If you're into burning your own CDs (or DVDs), this system can play or display lots of formats, including MP3s, windows media files (WMA), and even JPEGs (as well as all the usual DVD formats).
Overall; built well, looks good, sounds great, well worth the money. I love it.

I admittedly was only looking for a small-ish, psuedo-surround system for a secondary TV in my house, and what I got was not only a great DVD player (progressive scan is the only way to go!) but also great sounding - and small - speakers and a party management system! I love that this thing plays MP3's and displays a full menu of all the songs recorded on the TV. I recently made a CD for a party with almost 200 songs on it and a number of people asked about the system I was using.

For the price range, you really can't beat this deal, and Panasonic has always made solid A/V equipment (in my experience). If you want something simple that takes 5 minutes to hook up, this is the product you're looking for!

I agree with the other positive reviews on this site. I have to add that I'm coming at it from a slightly different angle. I have been looking for a nice bookshelf system that will also play MP3 and WMA files. I have a nice portable CD player that does this and it's so nice to have 10 CD's all on one disk. I tried out an MP3 disk at the store and was happy to see that it not only plays files that are all in the root folder (flat files) but also files that are organized in folder structures (by artist and album title). I like to organize my music that way. The big bonus was when I got it home and connected it to an old TV monitor (I really wasn't planning to use it for DVD's). I love the navigation and on-screen display of my music - even regular CD's with the track info stored display properly (FINALLY!). I've only had it for a few hours, but I've played CD's, MP3's and some DVD music videos. So far, I love it! My only caveat (as with most electronics, these days) is that if you lose the remote control, you lose a lot of functionality. I'll just have to keep it away from the kids.

What a great value! I have been searching for just what this unit offers; a compact DVD player with the capacity for CD, MP3, plus AM&FM, including speakers, all for an attractive price. I did not want all of the speakers and wires associated with "home theater in a box", but essentially wanted all of the features they offer in a small stereo package without the expense of a true component system. This is a great main system for those of us who are not true audiophiles, and may even be a good bedroom system for them as well. My only complaint is that I cannot get the volume sufficiently high, but that is because I am using it in a large living room, a task for which it is not designed. Good job Panasonic!

This is overall a very nice compact audio system. It is stylish with metal finishing on the front and the speakers have better finishing than Panasonic's SC-19(?) 5 cd changers at WalMart. It also plays DVD discs and the speakers are magnetic-shielded, which is another advantage when you connect it with a laptop to play mp3's. The price of $150 (I don't know why it went up like $200 after I purchased it) is pretty nice considering all these features.

However, there are some minor things you need to consider before buying this unit. I usually listen to Jazz and classics and the bass is rather strong. The overall sound is not very clear like other hi-fi units, but you may not expect it from a $150 unit...

Also, you cannot random-play mp3 files. However, this problem is the same for other Panasonic compact systems. This is rather silly. I hope Panasonic can improve it for their next models.

Although this unit can read DVD-R discs, it does not support mp3 playbacks on a DVD-R disc.

Overall, this is a fine unit. I wish it could play clear sounds as well as my cheap $50 Sennheiser PX100 headphone, but it is also true that I cannot get a stereo unit like this with DVD support for $150. I was thinking about JVC and Phillips units as well, but they were falling behind in overall features.