Panasonic SC-BTT182 review

A Blu-ray player is a must-have investment for any film fan, as you can’t watch high definition video without one. You’re missing out if you don’t upgrade your speakers too, though, which is where Panasonic’s SC-BTT182 comes in: it’s an entry level 2.1 home cinema in a box intended to upgrade your speakers as well as your picture.

Like Panasonic’s stand-alone Blu-ray players, the main unit has fairly plain looks. A mirror finish plastic front panel hides a single line LCD display, as well as an SD card slot and USB port for connecting a USB flash drive, external hard disk or iPod. Things are equally bare around the back, with just a single HDMI output, analogue and digital optical audio out, Ethernet, an FM radio antenna and a USB port for Panasonic’s expensive Skype camera. Unlike the basic Blu-ray range, the BTT182 doesn’t include Wi-Fi as standard – you’ll need to buy an additional dongle (part code DY-WL10E-K, £66 from www.amazon.co.uk), use powerline networking or run an Ethernet cable from your router to your TV.

The speaker inputs are proprietary, so if the included cables aren’t long enough, you’ll have to splice some extra speaker wire onto the ends. The speakers themselves are incredibly compact, taking up little more room than a coffee mug, so you should easily be able to squeeze them onto your TV stand. The subwoofer is considerably larger, but still small enough to hide out of sight behind a sofa or in the corner of a room.

Before we loaded up our Blu-ray test discs, we jumped into the VIERA Connect service. As we’ve come to expect from Panasonic, there are plenty of connected services that should make connecting the player to the internet your first priority. As well as catch-up TV services from BBC iPlayer, internet video streaming from YouTube and on-demand films from AceTrax, Netflix has been integrated in a big way. The remote control has a dedicated Netflix button designed to take you straight to the service no matter where you are, which is great if you’re a subscriber. Social networking features include Facebook and Skype integration, but the latter is only useful if you plan on buying the official camera (part code TY-CC20W, £79 inc VAT from www.very.co.uk).

If you prefer to watch your own files, you can stream them straight from a networked PC or NAS using DLNA, or play them directly from a USB flash drive or portable hard disk. All our test files played flawlessly, including the often finicky DivX, MKV and MOV files.

To put the speakers through their paces, we switched to using Blu-ray discs. For the most part, they coped well, filling our medium-sized test space with sound. We weren’t completely convinced by the 3D surround effect – it’s designed to eliminate the need for rear and centre speakers, and although they did extend the soundstage slightly, it won’t fool you into thinking you have speakers behind you.

Without a centre speaker, speech occasionally got lost amidst the action during busy scenes, but for the most part it was clear and easy to comprehend. It was also during the hectic moments of Casino Royale’s opening chase scene that the limitations of the system became clear. At louder volumes, the satellites struggle to keep the high end from sounding too sharp. The small passive subwoofer also lacks the finesse of an active system, making explosions and gunshots sound overblown and boomy.

Thankfully, picture quality doesn’t disappoint, with high definition images that look incredibly crisp and clear. There’s a whole host of options for tweaking picture quality, in both 2D and 3D modes, so even the most demanding cinema fan should be able to get the perfect image with very little effort. The options can all be tweaked while a disc is playing, so you don’t have to lose your place in a film just to adjust the brightness.

If you’ve yet to invest in a dedicated speaker system, the BTT182 can make a massive difference to your viewing experience. Although it lacks true surround sound, the 2.1 setup will be a huge improvement over a TV’s integrated speakers. Audio quality isn’t perfect, and we weren’t sold on the virtual surround effects, but if you’re after simplicity, this is a great first step to a home cinema setup.