Customer Reviews
no surround sound inputs 
2008-01-03
I didn't realize until I got everything all set up that there was not any inputs, except rca which doesn't give you surround sound. I can't get surround sound from my xbox or tv. It sounds good if you only watch dvds. I guess I'll take it back.
Basic home theater. Good sound, with limitations. 
2007-12-30
I guess I should have read the reviews before purchasing this item:
PROS:
- Easy setup. The most complex part was screwing the main speakers together. Speakers are pre-wired so you just have to plug em into the DVD player.
- Good sound for the price. Compared to my previous Bose surround system, midrange is stronger but treble is noticeably weak. Bass is comparable, but sounds a bit muddier. The subwoofer level can be adjusted separately than the main volume level (5 selectable levels). I would give the sound quality 3.5 out of 5 stars, about what I expected for the price and from the store display.
- Compact. Device simplifies my home theater/stereo setup tremendously by replacing 3 separate components (DVD player, FM receiver/amp, ipod dock). The tangle of wires behind my entertainment center is much smaller.
- Quiet. I was concerned by the poorly ventilated design and the fan on the rear of the unit that I would be subjected to constant "fan noise". Although the fan does kick in whenever the device is powered on, overall operation is fairly quiet including the motorized tray.
CONS:
- Limited inputs. Inexplicably, the device has only 1 ipod/auxiliary input and 1 set of RCA inputs to receive input from your TV or any other device. So you don't get surround sound (only basic stereo or simulated "super surround") for anything but the DVD player. So the audio from the TV can be output to all 5 speakers, but it's not true 5.1 surround without the discrete center channel. And you can forget about adding any other media device (HD DVD or Blu Ray player) to the system. I ended up routing all my other media players (archos, dvd recorder) thru the TV instead of to the panasonic home theater. It may be worthwhile to invest in the 1050 model which has an optical input.
- Ipod setup is very basic. There is no video output for the ipod, so you can ony play music not videos from the ipod. The remote control can't browse or switch playlists, so most ipod functions must be controlled on the ipod itself. The dock doesn't even have the plastic tray adapter for the gen 3 nano, so I have to use the white plastic apple adapter which does not match the black panasonic system.
- Cheap plastic speaker encasing. Even the DVD tray feels flimsy. System is clearly not built to last.
- Limited equalizer functions (only 3 preset modes) plus no balance or fade. So whatever volume comes out of the rear surround and center speakers is the volume you're stuck with.
- Limited info from the LCD display. For example, when playing music CDs, the LCD can display either the track # or time elapsed, but not both simultaneously. The device recognizes CDs with embedded text but does not display the text.
- 5 disc tray is tempermental. Each disc has to be seated firmly in the disc "holder" or the device won't read the disc. My previous 5-disc changer (Sony) was not so fussy -- if a disc was inserted a little bit askew, the machine would "fix" the disc when the tray closed.
Altogether, if I had to do-over, I would definitely get the 1050 instead of this 950. The surround sound speakers are wasted 95% of the time because I can only get surround sound from the DVD player and not the TV. For $400, I think this device should have an optical input. Otherwise, sound and video quality is good.
No External Surround Sound 2007-12-21
Pro's: The unit has fine sound and excellent video when playing standards DVD's. Price is good.
Con's: No external surround sound.
I expect a Home Theater In a Box (HTIB) to have surround available for more than just the internal functions like playing DVD's. Only Left/Right audio inputs are supplied via the Aux input for connection to a Satellite or Cable box. Digital Optical Audio is reserved for the PT1050, which costs $100 more.
If you plan on using this system for TV viewing, save your money and buy something with better capabilities.
Good for the price 
2007-12-21
Just setup my system two days ago. Setup was not terribly difficult but I have some experiece. Placing the receiver for the wireless speakers away from my 2.4G phone was necessary. I would not have thought the reciever would cause a problem. I moved it about 6 feet. My wireless 54G network had some problems. I have a Linksys WRT54G. It defaults to channel 6. I changed it to channel 11 and it works fine now. I'm writing this report on it now.
The sound difference is fantastic compared to regular sound. The bass really booms quite well and the highs are clear as crystal. The sound quality is really pretty good but not on a par with a high end component system that cost two or three times what this system costs. For the price I think it's great. I have it in a very large room 25'X50'. I expect that if the room was a bit smaller it would really shine. The upvert on Gladiator was fantastic. It didn't do as well with older DVDs pre 1998.
I'm am satisfied and very happy with this purchase.
Good Sound, Bad User Interface 2007-12-16
Bought this unit 2 weeks ago. My experience is mostly in component systems, not HTIBs; I bought this unit based on online reviews from this site and others. Here are my observations:
Strengths: Sound quality was good. Decent clarity at both low and high volume levels. Bass from subwoofer was well matched, not overwhelming. More than enough power from speakers to fill an apartment, or small-mod living room/TV room. Easy setup -- only had to look at the manual once for the wireless surround setup. Yes, you CAN adjust both time delay and volume of all speakers.
Weaknesses: User interface and iPod interface. In the attempt to make the UI menu-driven, many functions that are single button-pushes on component systems (subtitle, language) require 3-4 buttons to operate. Kind of a drag if the lights are down low and you're fumbling with the remote. Speaking of the remote, it's not very well set up -- I keep on having to refer to the print manual to find out what the buttons do. Would love to have some TV channel controls so I can toss out my TV remote. Finally, the iPod interface is definitely something that was obviously rushed to market. The SCPT950 (and 953 and 1050 for that matter) is ONLY capable of playing the entire library by artist IN ALPHABETICAL ORDER. No playlists, no menus, no nothing. Just linear play. Quite a pain when you have 500-1000 songs on your ipod.
Have not tested: HD video output (only have a 480i TV).
Overall, would definitely do a bit more research before buying again. Sound quality is quite good, but the user interface is annoying for technical-minded people.
Good system, but has its cons... 2008-07-07
This is a great system in the fact that it has wireless rear speakers, an iPod dock that works well, and the 5-disc player will play just about any type of DVD I've put inside of it without any problems.
I've owned this system for 9 months, and here are the issues I have with it:
My Nintendo Wii (located just below the receiver) was having trouble connecting to the wireless network, and I discovered it was due to interference with the wireless rear speaker signal. When I turned the home theater system off, the Wii would connect just fine. Annoying, although I read that you may be able to switch channels for the speaker signals to resolve this issue.
The sound quality is decent, but the wireless rear speakers are pretty weak, hardly any sound emits from them. Then I read that this system is not compatible with true 5.1 surround on anything but playing an internal DVD. Boo for that!
I recently got a PS3, and decided to also get a digital optical cable, only to find there is no port for one on this system, as others have said in these reviews. Some people have said to upgrade to the SC-PT1050, but I think Panasonic recently released the SC-PT960 model that does include a digital optical input. You might want to check that one out instead.
Overall, good system, but has its flaws. Wish I would have done more research before buying, but this was my first home theater. Live and learn I guess.
Sounds great but no true 5.1 surround! 2008-03-30
I bought a set of these from Circuit City yesterday after comparing its sound quality to every system they had in the pricerange of $300-$700 and deciding this sounded the best for the money it cost. I brought it home excited as a schoolboy to set it up. Setup is nice & easy, it takes longer to pull the components out of their packing than it does to set up the system & start enjoying the new sound, which by the way is miles above that of the television speakers on my 42" LG LCD.
I make fun of the concept of wireless rears, because you find yourself connecting wires to your wireless speakers, & thats just dumb, but to be honest...its quite nice. My living room is 21x22 feet, and it did svae me about 50 feet of running wires through my crawl space to install the surround speakers. Instead, there's just a 10 foot wire from the wireless receiver to each of the remote speakers. I'd prefer them to put a receiver in each speaker so that the wireless can actually be...hmm...wireless. :) In fairness though, this feature is pretty convenient & its something I don't want to give up if I wind up exchanging this system.
The Ipod controller is cool, the setup microphone is very cool...it automatically adjusts the levels for each speaker to give you optimal surround at the listening location you choose. The sound is full and clean, able to fill my 21x22' living room with vaulted ceilings very well. It upconverts your DVD's to the point where they look about as good as broadcast HD, not quite blueray quality, but very good. If all you're going to do with this system is watch DVD's or listen to music, then I highly recommend it...at least 4 stars. BUT, if you want more, then not so much...keep reading.
Ran into a problem thats pretty disappointing, I'm trying to decide whether or not to return it for something else right now. There is only 1 audio input, just a red & white RCA...no optical in, no hdmi in, no digital coax in, nothin. I didn't see this as a problem in the store, my TV's got like 18 million inputs on it and an audio out, so I'll just use a set of RCA's to run the TV's output to this thing & have surround sound for everything I watch. NOPE!!! Doesn't work that way. I called tech support to tell them my rear speakers won't make any noise, and found out that you can't get 5.1 from the auxiliary input on this unit. You have to have an optical or hdmi input to get the true 5.1 surround sound from anything other than your DVD's. So your HD cable is pointless, your Blueray is pointless, your video games are pointless, these speakers will ONLY give you true 5.1 surround sound on DVD's you're watching from the unit itself. BOOO!!!!
**update** I decided to get rid of this afterall. After talking with a Crutchfield advisor, I found that the next model up, the SC-PT1050, is going to do exactly what I want. THe main difference is that it has an optical input, so I can connect my cable box & PS3 to the TV with HDMI cables and then my TV to the SC-PT1050 with the optical cable & that will maintain my true 5.1 surround sound instead of the 2.1 through 6 speakers that the 950 does.
5.1 Surround from Internal DVDs ONLY ! ! ! BEWARE ! ! ! 
2008-03-19
Pros: Works great for watching only DVDs
Cons: Can NOT be connected to any other type of digital audio equipment. Extremely limited system.
I originally recommended this system for my father-in-law who was setting up his first home theater. He was finally ditching the 25yr old 27" TV and basic cable. It was on sale at Circuit City for the same price as on Amazon. After unpacking and setting up everything, I was very unhappy to discover that there are NO DIGITAL AUDIO INPUTS for this system. This means that you can not hook up your HDTV, Satellite, Blu-Ray player, or any other digital device to this system. I find that totally outrageous. The only thing that will give you theater-quality surround sound is the built-in DVD player. This is a totally useless system. Unless you are trying to use Panasonic exclusively to simplify the amount of remotes to use with your Panasonic HDTV, then I would recommend the Sony version of this system. It has plenty of digital audio inputs. If you must stick with Panasonic, then your only real option is to upgrade to the PT1050 which offers a single optical input that you can connect to your HDTV. The PT1050 worked perfectly for my father-in-law. The PT950 was a useless waste of everyone's time.
Great product for the $$ 
2008-01-30
I have researched plasma and HTS for about 5 months, and decided on this unit.(with help from [...] reviews) I was going to order from my local Sears, but they wanted [...] more! I'm not high tech and this was pretty easy for me to set up with my plasma pz77u I bought also. The surround sound on the HTS, was great with the movie Transformers, the neighbors even called to see what all the rumble was! It's also great just watching cable. Got the best deal here, no shipping fee's. I live on the west coast, and it shipped from New Jersey, HTS arrived on the 7th day & the plasma arrived on the 8th day, in perfect shape! I am very pleased to say the least, thanks Amazon, AGAIN!
Price 2008-01-17
This is a great system, but its cheaper at a number of other stores than it is here. especially if you go to those stores, then you dont have to pay the higher price or the shipping costs. Shop arround, save seventy bucks.
