Home > Consumer Reviews > Philips HTS3357 - 5.1 ch Tallboy Multi-Region Capable - DVD Home Cinema System - With 1080i Upscaling - Black

Fantastic clear sound and crystal clear upscaling picture for £135. But using sky through audio cables on auxilary doesnt give the sound menu's for films just music so am watching sky on the rock sound but it still sounds great.

I have been very pleased with this unit. The only quibble is that the USB input will only play MP3 files, but most of my media is in WMA format, which it does not reccognise (converting it is a pain). It will, however, play both WMA and MP3 files on the same CD.

I got this from amazon about 6 months ago (6/2008), it arrived in good time and in good condition. The box is very large (1300 by 1000 by 600)
It is still working well, I would highly recommend this product for all ages, the olds (50's) have found the controls simple to use. The product is well made and has good sound, the issues about buzzing people mentioned i did not come across.
The only things i would change are: 1. the disc try is flimsy like a LG 2. The rear speakers are to large and the base stops you being able to push them against the wall 3. Loading a data stick is a bit fiddly on the controls as you have to hold down the AV button. 4. the data stick can be slow to load, i would not recommend using any larger than 2GB.
Overall a very good product from Philips.

I noticed that other reviews direct the reader toward the product specs page for the multi region code. I may be blind as a bat - goes with my age I'm sure - but I cannot see it anywhere! I've just managed to locate this item elsewhere for the grand sum of £115, now all I need is that code.

Can anyone point me in that direction or list it here please?

Many thanks!

Jez

I will start this review by saying that this system is excellent value for money and very easy to setup.

I purchased this system the other day due to many factors , HDMI 1080i HD Video upscaling which is incredible quality especially playing *avi files through the USB Media Player , I dont think I could tell the difference between my Blue Ray PS3 Video to the HDMI 1080i upscaling feature. Please note that this device does not come with a HDMI Cable so you will need to purchase one, it does come with a Scart Cable though.

The two rear speakers are about 1.5 Meters tall with quite a large base , if you are looking to hide these behind furniture you might have a problem. The cable lengh on the rear speakers is about 10m , The L&R speakers have about 5m in lengh and the centre speaker is about the same. The speakers are hard wired so it it not possible to use the longer cable with a different speaker , if you need to use the rear speakers as the front speakers just simply switch the connections as a few people have suggested on these reviews.

The DTS / Surround sound is very high quality , after setting the system up which took about 15 minutes I gave " Black Hawk Down " a play and it felt like bullets were being fired through the window , I would be afraid for the windows to take this system upto full volume.

I will agree that the DVD tray is very delicate , There must be a reason Philips make them like this maybe its cost but in principle this isn't something you should be worried about.

If you have a HDD Media Player you will usually feed the connections directly into your TV , I would suggest that you use a USB / DISC option and USB Cable and use the Philips menu to play your files using the HDMI Output and not your Media Player Menu. For some reason the USB device displays a short file name , example Batman Returns would display BTMANR~1 not a major problem and I can see why Phillips have done this as not all filenames are simple text.

I was expecting to hear a small hiss when the system is on standby , but I can confirm that there is nothing , if you do have issues I have noticed Philips have a the latest firmware on there website but ill doubt you will need that.