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Panasonic SC-BTT270 5.1 Blu-ray home theatre
AV do-it-all for Lilliputian lounges
Review For an all inclusive Blu-ray home cinema, this Panasonic system sure comes in a small box. But everything you need for 21st century surround sound is inside, including satellite speakers and subwoofer, Blu-ray receiver and metres of colour coded bell-wire. Thankfully, the SC-BTT270 sounds somewhat larger than it looks.
Panasonic's SC-BTT270 5.1 Blu-ray home theatre
As an example of concise electronics, the SC-BTT270’s receiver takes some beating. In a chassis barely bigger than a standalone Blu-ray deck, there’s also an FM tuner, multi-channel digital amp module and slide-out iPod dock. Small wonder there’s no room to accommodate HDMI inputs on the rear – just an output. Still you do get USB ports front and back, an SD card slot and digital optical audio and stereo phono inputs.
The satellite speakers stand proud at just 117mm tall, with the subwoofer an unobtrusive 289.5mm. The centre speaker may be a tad wider than the left/rights, but it’s still a titch. Welcome to the home cinema Featherweight division.
Content playback from USB media proves more reliable than the network option
Performance is a tale of two halves. Image quality from Blu-ray looks predictably fine. 2D playback is characteristically sharp and artefact free, while 3D discs perform as expected. Should you feel the need, you can also depth convert your flat platters into faux 3D.
Disc loading is speedy. My heavy Java old faithful, the remastered Goldfinger, goes from tray-in to 007 menu in just under 44 seconds. The no-Java Lou Reed concert movie Berlin is on stage in 30 seconds. In addition to BD/DVD/CD disc replay, the system hooks into Panasonic’s on-line Viera Connect portal, which offers a variety of streaming video services, including YouTube and VOD supplier Acetrax.
Spring loaded speaker terminals make for a quick set-up
As an adjunct to local USB media playback, the receiver will also stream across your network, although file compliancy is poor and presentation basic. While AVIs and MKV content unspooled from a stick, it wasn’t recognized on my Nas. MP3s play without album art in the most rudimentary of windows.