Panasonic SC-BFT800 review

Picasa support was much better. After logging in, our own photo collections were easily accessible and slideshows appeared with a simple dissolve transition between each photo and no irritating loading icons. Slideshows were accompanied by some twee music but turning the volume right down put a stop to it. We couldn’t find a way to subscribe to friends’ photos, though. As with the Picasa website, text searches are based on the names and tags of photos, not users. An Activity section included friends’ photos we’d viewed recently on a PC, but while it was possible to add albums to a Favourites folder, we were unable to add the person to see any new albums they upload.

Accessing media files on the home network via DLNA was straightforward enough, but trawling through large music libraries was a slow process. Slideshows weren’t as elegant here as in the Picasa viewer, with a large Loading message appearing each time a new photo is requested. A PAL MPEG-2 file was the only video that would play, with our DivX, WMV and AVC files all appearing greyed out.

There are more negatives than positives to report about VieraCast, but the Picasa module is the highlight. If viewing your own photos is a high priority, Panasonic’s players perform admirably.

The SC-BFT800’s sockets are in short supply, too, with a solitary optical S/PDIF input and no HDMI or even a phono analogue input. Pair it with a 3D-capable TV, though, and it can use HDMI 1.4a’s audio return channel to pipe sounds from a TV set-top box back down its HDMI output socket.

We’re yet to be persuaded by claims that this – or any – sound bar delivers a convincing surround effect using its narrow strip of speakers. The sound stage does seem wider than the bar itself but there’s no comparison between this and true surround sound systems. Otherwise, sound quality was impressive, with an authoritative tone and thunderous bass that still managed to be precise and focused. High frequencies were somewhat lacking, though – being generous, we’d describe the tone as warm, but at times it just seemed murky. Switching the EQ preset from Flat to Clear improved matters but high frequencies then seemed a little harsh.

The BFT800 scores top marks for style, but £630 is simply too expensive for what’s on offer.