Panasonic SC-HT700 CD/DVD Home Theatre Sys

Other products by Panasonic

Product Details

Product Manual [2.48mb PDF]

• Item Weight: 45 pounds
• Shipping Weight: 55 pounds
• Shipping: Currently, item can be shipped only within the U.S.
• ASIN: B00008XL1I
• Item model number: SC-HT700
• Average Customer Review: 3.9 out of 5 stars See all reviews (45 customer reviews)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #48,229 in Electronics (See Bestsellers in Electronics)
• Discontinued by manufacturer: Yes
• Date first available at Amazon.com: June 29, 2004

Product Description

Amazon.com Product Description
Early Adopters Pick: April 2003. This home theater system includes the world's slimmest 5-Disc DVD changer, as well as a six-speaker system.

The SC-HT700 handles the audio end of a home theater, giving you surround sound decoding, amplification, and playback through a specially matched six-speaker system (left, center, right, left and right surround, and low-frequency subwoofer). The five-disc carousel system's DVD-Audio playback makes it adept at music as well as movies, offering super high-fidelity (192 kHz/24-bit) sound. DVD-Audio discs provide multichannel and stereo sound, incredible storage capacity, and unique bonus materials not available on regular audio CDs.

DVD movies will look and sound great through the system's 54 MHz/10-bit video decoder, video depth enhancer, progressive-scan video output (for use with high-definition and HD-ready televisions), and Dolby Digital and DTS discrete 5.1-channel surround decoding and rendering. Progressive scanning, referred to as 480p for the number of horizontal lines that compose the video image, creates a picture using twice the scan lines of a conventional DVD picture, providing higher resolution and sharper images while eliminating nearly all motion artifacts.

The speaker set includes four satellite speakers (front and rear left and right) powered by 45 watts each, a 90-watt center-channel speaker (critical for handling most of a movie's dialogue), and a powerful, 170-watt subwoofer specially designed for unobtrusive placement. All speakers are magnetically shielded to protect your TV from distortion induced by the speakers' magnetic fields. In addition, a digital-synthesized FM/AM tuner lets you listen to your favorite radio stations.

Product Description
Panasonic SC-HT700 is a Home Theater System with Built-In 5-DVD Changer and Surround Sound Speaker System.PRODUCT FEATURES:DVD-Audio Compatibility;Dolby Digital Decoder;DTS Decoder;Dolby Pro Logic Surround;FM/AM Digital Synthesizer Tuner;Audio Inputs;Cinema Mode;Dialog Enhancer;Multi-Channel Sound Field;Sound Field Control (SFC);Compatible Media Formats VD-Audio, DVD-Video, DVD-RAM/DVD-R 4, CD, CD-R/RW 5, Video CD, JPEG, MP3, WMA, HighMAT;Progressive Scanning;Super Surround Sound.

See all Product Description

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

150 of 155 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Great Home Theater System, April 30, 2003

By	L. Peterson (Austin, Tx USA) - See all my reviews

We purchased the Panasonic SC-HT700 last week so I can only give you my initial impressions of the machine. First let me say that we are extremely happy with our purchase. This system replaced a stereo, dvd player and sub-woofer that we had been using for quite a few years. This sound quality of this new system is far superior to what we had been listening to for both DVD's and Music. The system comes nicely packaged in a fairly large box, it is well organized and comes with everything you should need to get up and running. While I was shopping for a home theater system I had discovered that this unit was a bit different than most, part of the electronics for the unit apparently reside in the subwoofer, there is a special fairly heavy electronics cable that attaches the control unit to the subwoofer and then all of the speaker wires attach to the subwoofer along with the power cord, the special cable is probably about 8 feet long so if you are considering this unit you may want to keep this in mind, the sub will have to be within about 8 feet of the control unit and all of your speaker wires (including the center channel) will attach to it. Depending on your room and where you want to place your components this may or may not work for you. For me this was not a problem, I did give a bit of thought to the fact that if anything ever goes wrong with the sub it will probably render the entire unit worthless. Once I had the unit installed and the speakers all hooked up I pulled out the manual and remote control, the manual is very good, it is well written and easy to understand, the remote is a universal remote and while it will control my TV the buttons are small and it is a bit confusing. There are more functions on this unit then I will ever use. The on-line information that I found (not much since this unit just came out) while I was researching this unit was not always correct on every feature, I happen the have a VCD (predecessor to DVD) and this unit plays them fine, this was not listed anywhere that I could find. The speakers also have brass threaded inserts in them so that they can be mounted to brackets, the on-line information indicated the speakers did not have these inserts. Once again, we are quite happy with our purchase, if I were doing it again today I would purchase the same unit.

63 of 66 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Perfect, well almost ........, August 5, 2003

By A Customer

During my research for a reasonable home theater system i found that this HT 700 is the best selling and highest recommended system on amazon.com is. I read all the reveiws and decided that it is the kind of middle-class system is that I would need. First the good: the system comes with everything you need and set up is straight forward and simple until you get to actually using the system first. The challenges: First, you really have to learn and closely read the manual to master all the options crammed into that little remote. Don't put that manual too far away. I am sure you will need it again for reference a few times after first learning how to use the system. Next and this is IMPORTANT !!! Earlier reveiws ahve mentioned that the HT700 is the same as the HT900, just with smaller speakers. THAT IS NOT TRUE and in between all the different smaller differences, there is one big one (at least for me) that I wish I would have known and which may have made me rather purchase the HT900 system: The HT 900 can decode Dolby Surround sound from satellite transmissions and from DVDs, the HT700 can only decode Dolby Surround sound from DVDs. So, all my DirecTV shows that I TiVo are not played back with surround sound.......the HT 900 CAN DOD THIS !! Other the differences are rather minor.more power in the HT900, but the HT700 has anyway enough power for me.......in general, I would have expected maybe a little more sound from this system. Don't get me wrong it is not disappointing, but a little more I did expect. For the price it is probably one of the best systems you can get.

34 of 36 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars I researched Bose, Sony, and this One.....THIS ONE WON, July 31, 2003

By	Elmer and Allison Valle (Hamilton, Ohio United States) - See all my reviews

My last home theatre was a Sony 5.1 Dream System Surround Sound with DTS, 300 Watts, satellite speakers, etc. After a year I needed to upgrade to another system. Here was my 3 top choices.

1. Bose 3-2-1 System...
2. Sony DAV-C990 DVD Dream System...
3. Panasonic SC-HT900...
4. Panasonic SC-HT700

After much research on all three. The Panasonic HT900 seemed to be the best choice, since that had progressive scan, 600 watts, a 5 disc changer, and great reviews on amazon, epinions, ask jeeves, and every other website. But for [the price] it was a good deal. I did not like the tower speakers when I looked at them for myself... They were made of cheap plastic and most of the tower was useless. They were lightweight and were easily toppled (especially if you have pets or kids).

The Bose had a lot of system bugs still encountered by many buyers. Bose DID NOT have progressive scan and not a true surround sound and the price was way HIGH ... I did not see a lot of good reviews on the Bose. Also no disc changer.

The Sony at first was my top choice since I knew the quality in their Trinitron TV's and because I owned an older Dream System that was great. But once again for [the price], this did not have the 5 disc changer.

Finally I checked out the little brother of the Panasonic HT-900 the HT-700. The only difference is that this system does not have the speaker towers. Instead they have the modular satellite speakers. Also at $300 it was cheaper and had all the features of the HT-900 such as the 5 disc changer, 600 watts, progressive scan, etc. I decided to buy this one.

BOTTOMLINE: This was a GREAT and ECONOMICAL PURCHASE. The sound is crystal clear, the subwoofer has active bass, and the satellite speakers give true 5.1 surround sound. I cannot rave enough of this HT-700 system. Save your money and buy this sytem instead and spend the extra $$$ on DVD's, CD's, and the component cables instead. But don't take my word on this. The Average Rating speak for themselves. Thanks