Panasonic SC-BTT362 review

We’re used to seeing all-in-one Blu-ray systems that include a set of 5.1 surround sound speakers, but it’s less common to find 2.1 systems, which makes Panasonic’s BTT362 something of a surprise. It comprises a Blu-ray player, a compact subwoofer and two tall satellite speakers. There’s no surround sound, then, but this system should still make a welcome upgrade to the integrated speakers on the average TV.

Both the subwoofer and satellites connect to the main unit using proprietary connectors. The subwoofer cable is non-removable but the satellites use standard spring terminals, which should make it slightly easier to extend the 2.9m cables if required.

As well as the speaker connections, there’s a reasonable number of ports on the back of the main unit. Two HDMI inputs are ideal for attaching a games console or set-top box, while analogue and optical digital inputs accommodate other audio devices. There’s an FM antenna socket for analogue radio stations, and a USB port supports Panasonic’s Skype camera for internet video calling. An integrated iPod dock to the right of the disc tray is another welcome inclusion.

There’s another USB port and an SD card slot on the front underneath the flip-out faceplate, but format support was disappointingly limited. Only JPEG image files and MP3 audio files are supported, and video support isn’t much better; we could play DivX and Xvid files but our MKVs refused to play, despite claimed support for this format. WMV and MP4 videos didn’t even show up in the list of available files. The same was true when we tried over the network using DLNA, so this isn’t the ideal set for anyone with a large multimedia collection.