Home > Consumer Reviews > Panasonic SC-PT950 Deluxe 5 DVD Home Theater System

Pros:
Setup is easy.
Sounds fine for the money.
Support excellent
Cons:
Only 2 input ports(other than devoted iPod).
My Aux input did not work with my TV as per instruction manual, but support (that answered immediately) told me to connect directly to my satellite box--that fixed it.
Nonetheless, the wireless rear speakers bombed my WiFi network and made my phone sound like popcorn cooking.
I moved my WiFi to channel 11 and bought a new phone (Panasonic Direct 6.0) on a different frequency. Now all functions quite well. But be prepared to do this kind of diddling and don't expect the Disney Land house of the Future where device is self-aware, smart, and simple. (OK, actually not too hard. I'm one of the "ancient ones" who did not grow up with the internet, but I did it.)

I bought a set of these from Circuit City yesterday after comparing its sound quality to every system they had in the pricerange of $300-$700 and deciding this sounded the best for the money it cost. I brought it home excited as a schoolboy to set it up. Setup is nice & easy, it takes longer to pull the components out of their packing than it does to set up the system & start enjoying the new sound, which by the way is miles above that of the television speakers on my 42" LG LCD.

I make fun of the concept of wireless rears, because you find yourself connecting wires to your wireless speakers, & thats just dumb, but to be honest...its quite nice. My living room is 21x22 feet, and it did svae me about 50 feet of running wires through my crawl space to install the surround speakers. Instead, there's just a 10 foot wire from the wireless receiver to each of the remote speakers. I'd prefer them to put a receiver in each speaker so that the wireless can actually be...hmm...wireless. :) In fairness though, this feature is pretty convenient & its something I don't want to give up if I wind up exchanging this system.

The Ipod controller is cool, the setup microphone is very cool...it automatically adjusts the levels for each speaker to give you optimal surround at the listening location you choose. The sound is full and clean, able to fill my 21x22' living room with vaulted ceilings very well. It upconverts your DVD's to the point where they look about as good as broadcast HD, not quite blueray quality, but very good. If all you're going to do with this system is watch DVD's or listen to music, then I highly recommend it...at least 4 stars. BUT, if you want more, then not so much...keep reading.

Ran into a problem thats pretty disappointing, I'm trying to decide whether or not to return it for something else right now. There is only 1 audio input, just a red & white RCA...no optical in, no hdmi in, no digital coax in, nothin. I didn't see this as a problem in the store, my TV's got like 18 million inputs on it and an audio out, so I'll just use a set of RCA's to run the TV's output to this thing & have surround sound for everything I watch. NOPE!!! Doesn't work that way. I called tech support to tell them my rear speakers won't make any noise, and found out that you can't get 5.1 from the auxiliary input on this unit. You have to have an optical or hdmi input to get the true 5.1 surround sound from anything other than your DVD's. So your HD cable is pointless, your Blueray is pointless, your video games are pointless, these speakers will ONLY give you true 5.1 surround sound on DVD's you're watching from the unit itself. BOOO!!!!

**update** I decided to get rid of this afterall. After talking with a Crutchfield advisor, I found that the next model up, the SC-PT1050, is going to do exactly what I want. THe main difference is that it has an optical input, so I can connect my cable box & PS3 to the TV with HDMI cables and then my TV to the SC-PT1050 with the optical cable & that will maintain my true 5.1 surround sound instead of the 2.1 through 6 speakers that the 950 does.

I guess I should have read the reviews before purchasing this item:

PROS:
- Easy setup. The most complex part was screwing the main speakers together. Speakers are pre-wired so you just have to plug em into the DVD player.
- Good sound for the price. Compared to my previous Bose surround system, midrange is stronger but treble is noticeably weak. Bass is comparable, but sounds a bit muddier. The subwoofer level can be adjusted separately than the main volume level (5 selectable levels). I would give the sound quality 3.5 out of 5 stars, about what I expected for the price and from the store display.
- Compact. Device simplifies my home theater/stereo setup tremendously by replacing 3 separate components (DVD player, FM receiver/amp, ipod dock). The tangle of wires behind my entertainment center is much smaller.
- Quiet. I was concerned by the poorly ventilated design and the fan on the rear of the unit that I would be subjected to constant "fan noise". Although the fan does kick in whenever the device is powered on, overall operation is fairly quiet including the motorized tray.


CONS:
- Limited inputs. Inexplicably, the device has only 1 ipod/auxiliary input and 1 set of RCA inputs to receive input from your TV or any other device. So you don't get surround sound (only basic stereo or simulated "super surround") for anything but the DVD player. So the audio from the TV can be output to all 5 speakers, but it's not true 5.1 surround without the discrete center channel. And you can forget about adding any other media device (HD DVD or Blu Ray player) to the system. I ended up routing all my other media players (archos, dvd recorder) thru the TV instead of to the panasonic home theater. It may be worthwhile to invest in the 1050 model which has an optical input.
- Ipod setup is very basic. There is no video output for the ipod, so you can ony play music not videos from the ipod. The remote control can't browse or switch playlists, so most ipod functions must be controlled on the ipod itself. The dock doesn't even have the plastic tray adapter for the gen 3 nano, so I have to use the white plastic apple adapter which does not match the black panasonic system.
- Cheap plastic speaker encasing. Even the DVD tray feels flimsy. System is clearly not built to last.
- Limited equalizer functions (only 3 preset modes) plus no balance or fade. So whatever volume comes out of the rear surround and center speakers is the volume you're stuck with.
- Limited info from the LCD display. For example, when playing music CDs, the LCD can display either the track # or time elapsed, but not both simultaneously. The device recognizes CDs with embedded text but does not display the text.
- 5 disc tray is tempermental. Each disc has to be seated firmly in the disc "holder" or the device won't read the disc. My previous 5-disc changer (Sony) was not so fussy -- if a disc was inserted a little bit askew, the machine would "fix" the disc when the tray closed.

Altogether, if I had to do-over, I would definitely get the 1050 instead of this 950. The surround sound speakers are wasted 95% of the time because I can only get surround sound from the DVD player and not the TV. For $400, I think this device should have an optical input. Otherwise, sound and video quality is good.

Pro's: The unit has fine sound and excellent video when playing standards DVD's. Price is good.

Con's: No external surround sound.

I expect a Home Theater In a Box (HTIB) to have surround available for more than just the internal functions like playing DVD's. Only Left/Right audio inputs are supplied via the Aux input for connection to a Satellite or Cable box. Digital Optical Audio is reserved for the PT1050, which costs $100 more.

If you plan on using this system for TV viewing, save your money and buy something with better capabilities.

This system generates very good sound, and the setup is fairly straight forward. The rear wireless speakers are definitely a plus. The only observed drawback thus far is that the 5-disc DVD player does not support a wide variety of video options (i.e. no DIVX). Overall, a very good home theater system for the price.