Panasonic SC-BT100 5.1 Blu-Ray Home Theater System Review
March 11th, 2010
Panasonic SC-BT100 5.1 Blu-Ray Black Home Theater System Review from Mark A Mills. Perfect for apartment living…, SC-BT100 surround sound & blu-ray review.
As far as watching a movie, the SC-BT100 is top notch, and I highly recommend it for it’s quality. But there are many things I would change about it, mostly user-friendly issues:
1. It shows a green glow around the volume knob on the main unit. It’s so bright and big, it could be a distraction to some people, especially with the lights off, although I’ve gotten used to it.
2. The settings you want to change as far as configuring the bass, balance of the speakers, etc. are only on the small screen on the main unit. In other words, you can’t look at the TV to configure the system for the speaker setup. I guess they did this so that it could be a standalone music system. You’ll need to read the manual to figure out how to do what you want to do, so keep it handy.
3. The subwoofer was set to it’s highest level when I got it out of the box, both by the setting configuration, and by a button on the main unit that boosts it even more. I guess they did that for displays in stores, but you will probably want to set it back to it’s medium setting, unless you want to constantly feel like a 747 is going off in your living room. After watching a 3 hour movie with the subwoofer jacked up, I felt exhausted.
4. The rear wireless speakers actually are wired to a separate receiver that you plug in. This is fine for me, as they are technically wireless from the main unit (and I think all wireless rear speakers on all units have the same setup), but you have to turn the receiver on and off manually. The remote control won’t do it. I’m always sitting down, turning on the TV, watching it for a few minutes, realizing that the rear speakers are off, and then having to get up to turn them on. But I do love the fact that the rear speakers are completely separated from the main unit. This makes setup easy.
5. The unit doesn’t have a coaxial cable input. I guess if you get this system you will have high definition TV, but if you don’t, you can’t listen to the surround sound system, because an HDMI cable won’t run the sound from the TV to the SC-BT100. In fact, you will have to turn off the SC-BT100 because the TV speakers turn off when the SC-BT100 is on, and you won’t be able to hear anything at all until you do. I think you could change this option, but then you would want to change it back every time you watch a DVD or Blu-Ray.
6. The Viera Link thing that means you can use either remote control to work both the Panasonic TV or your SC-BT100 is not worth it. If I turn on the TV with the TV remote control, both units come on, but if I turn on the Blu-Ray player with the Blu-Ray remote, the TV doesn’t come on. In fact, there is a separate power button for the TV on the Blu-Ray remote. But you rarely need the TV remote anyway, so it’s not a big deal. But I wouldn’t worry about trying to match up your system with the same manufacturer as your TV for this option.
7. I also chose the option of having the sound seem like “it’s coming from the middle of the TV”, per the manual. All this means is that instead of the dialogue coming out of the middle speaker only, it also comes out of the left and right front speakers, as well. This is good, because otherwise, you will have one speaker for dialogue, and 4 speakers for music and special effects, and it will be hard to hear what anyone is saying.
8. It takes forever for the unit to extract a disc. I mean really, why does this take so long? What is it doing? The screen on the main unit even tells me to “WAIT”. What for? It takes a long time regardless if the system has been on for a long time, or if I just turned it on.
9. If I want to go to the main menu of a disc, I have to hit the Function Button, or the Submenu button, where I get a lot of options, where one is to go to the main menu. As much as this button is used (and it’s on every DVD player’s remote in the world), they make it awfully tough to get to the main menu. The Top Menu button and the Pop-Up Menu button won’t do the trick. And I’ve tried this on multiple Blu-Rays and DVDs, so it’s not the setup of the discs.
10. The system won’t show you what chapter number you are on when you skip through chapters, neither on the main unit’s display, nor on the TV. I’ve never seen a DVD player that didn’t show you the chapter number for later reference.
11. I wish it had a screen saver that would kick in if the movie is on pause for a long time. I’ve had it on pause for probably 20 minutes, and nothing happens. But even with my plasma, I haven’t had any burn-in issues. But I haven’t had it on pause all night long, either, which is possible if the kids stay up to watch a movie and fall asleep, and the movie ends and stays on the main menu.
12. One last minor complaint is that there isn’t a separate button for closed captioning. I know most people never use closed captioning, but sometimes I can’t understand what someone says, and I want to quickly read what they are saying, then turn it back off.
I do like the fact that it remembers where I was in the movie when the unit is turned off, so I can easily resume watching. And installation is a breeze, easily explained.
I got a great deal on this system, because I bought it together with a Panasonic TV. I wasn’t even planning to get a separate Blu-Ray player, as I am going to get a PlayStation 3, and I viewed the Blu-Ray player as getting that part of it for free. So I love the system because I got it so cheap, and it’s high quality. But if you are planning to pay full price for this unit, I would shop around to see if there is something more user-friendly.
As an aside, don’t pay a ton for an HDMI cable. “Category 2″ is as high quality as hdmi.org recognizes, and RadioShack sells them for $40. I have found that Mediabridge cables online for $4 are just as good, as well.
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Tags: Amp, Apartment Living, Bt100, Distraction, Few Minutes, Green Glow, Home Theater System, Living Room, Many Things, Music System, Panasonic, People, Remote Control, Speaker Setup, Subwoofer, Surround Sound, Top Notch, Volume Knob, Wireless Rear Speakers, Wireless Speakers
