So it’s my fault, for sure, but I just ordered the Panasonic SC-HT820V Home Theater System, got it all unpacked, setup, and mounted, and was pretty happy with it – the onscreen controls are great, and it’s nice having everything pre-balanced and tuned in a single, turn-key system. There are definitely better options, but for $300 I thought I could just get it all done in one go. Then today I discovered, after looking at how I was going to connect the videogame systems, that the SC-HT820V doesn’t have optical audio input. It’s my fault for not properly reading the specs when shopping, but I honestly didn’t give it a second thought, considering that the unit is on the high-end side (of the low-end side) and I was mainly concerned with its video output. But I’ve seen $100 home theater systems with optical audio inputs – why would Panasonic cheap out on something that would be so useful to people who want to use the 5.1 speakers for something besides DVDs?
Back to the shop it goes, and next time I’ll try to be a little more forward thinking.
