Two new small Home Cinema systems from Panasonic

For those of us who don't have quite enough space to install a full-blown Home Cinema system at home, Philips has just revealed two more compact alternatives.

The HTS6515 will include a DVD player, two speakers and a central woofer.  DTS and Dolby Digital sound will be processed by the Ambisound system, simulating the use of six speakers when only three are present. 

Like the , this new model also features a USB port to connect it to an external hard drive.  To make this worthwhile, it can decode DivX and MPEG files as well as playing MP3s and WMAs.  A radio with RDS is also included.

Strangely, the HDMI output only upscales pictures to 1080i and no further, even though other Philips products manage to make it to 1080p. 

The whole thing is on offer for 549 euros [800 USD / 435 GBP]



The CinemaOne is an ultra compact, round system, measuring 27.3 cm across by 17.2 cm high which packs in a DVD player, DivX decoder and five mini-speakers arranged around the case.  A sub-woofer occupies the bottom half.

Apart from that, it shares many of the HTS6515's technical specifications, although it doesn't include a radio.  On the other hand, it does include upscaling to 1080p.

Although we haven't had a chance to test it out in our labs yet, the one demonstration model we saw actually offered quite convincing sound using the single speaker block.

It will be available from October 2008 for 400 euros [580 USD / 315 GBP]