Panasonic have been putting most of their effort into their Blu-ray Home Cinema systems in recent years, but it’s nice to see that they continue to design and make good DVD based systems too. The DVD market, whilst being perhaps a little overshadowed by Blu-ray, is very vibrant and still accounts for the majority of movie purchases in the UK. Therefore it is no surprise to see that the big brands continue to supply decent upscaling DVD based systems, such as Sony’s DAV-DZ330 and the Panasonic SC-PT480.
The previous model to this was well received and very popular, and we see no reason why this model won’t be too. With its fairly conservative design, the Panasonic SC-PT480 is not quite as cutting edge as some of the more recent systems we’ve seen, but at least it won’t date quite as quickly. The sleek front fascia hides the disk tray, and Panasonics now standard iPod/iPhone dock – an essential these days – and manages to provide a look that will fit in with a variety of devices and televisions.
The speakers on the Panasonic SC-PT480 are quite small at 80mm wide by just under 120mm high and are surprisingly chunky – not heavy by any means, but certainly weightier than we were expecting. This size of the speakers will also make them easy to position around your lounge if you go for the traditional 5.1 arrangement. With this system though, you can also position all 4 speakers at the front and alter the settings to provide a virtual front surround sound effect – a nice feature. The centre speaker is the wider type we expect at 145mm x 85mm, and the subwoofer with its 16cm driver should provide the bass required. All in all, the speakers output a very respectable 1000w (RMS) which will be enough for all but the largest rooms.
The connection options are all fairly standard, but the HDMI output in the Panasonic SC-PT480 is ARC compatible which means your compatible television can send audio back to the system though HDMI, freeing up the optical input for your games console, for example.
What to consider before you buy the Panasonic SC-PT480
The built in iPod dock and 30 preset RDS radio are great, but more connection options such as an additional optical or HDMI input would have added a little more flexibility.
Why you should buy the Panasonic SC-PT480EB-K DVD Home Cinema System
Whilst certainly not a cutting edge system, the Panasonic SC-PT480 does just enough to make it a very respectable buy. If this is your first DVD Home cinema system, then you’ll get the full benefit of 5.1 surround sound and near high definition quality DVD upscaling to make movies much more enjoyable – and all for a great value price too. Rating: /5
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Is there any way that this product can be used with a suitable device to enable the use of wireless speakers?