Summary: The Philips HTS6500 is an elegant and simple surround sound solution that promises a lot to people with tight spaces, tight budgets, or little patience. The system finds the AM/FM stations and sets them to memory (up to 40 channels can be memorized).. DVD player upconverts to a beautiful 1080i. For the price it is a very good deal.

Summary: This is a HTIB, A 'home theater in a box'. Everything is included except a $49 HDMI cable. The good: sleek, modern, and compact, this HTIB has tons of features! Most important it has DVD upscaling to 720P/1080i and a HDMI connection to your new HDTV that is not always available on $500 plus systems. It has a AM-FM tuner, USB conecction for JPEG pictures and reads CD's, MP3's. The Multi Channel and Dolby 2.1 sound and volume is very very good but not great. The not so bad: The universal remote to the unit has an annoying delay and the TV input volume could be a bit louder. (Even after the firmware upgrade). All in all for approx $300 it sounds very good, plays great and easy to setup and use. If you have a limited budget, this Philips HTS-6500 is a must buy because it has the features you need and sounds like a home theater should! By the way, I did hours of research and this is what I bought. This is not for the home theater purist with lots of cash.

Summary: This is a good, solid home theater in a box. Plays very well PAL DVDs I brought from Europe, once you switch it to region free coding (open disc tray; press 9, 9, 9, 9, 0). Excellent image quality - using HDMI cable to see on my Philips PDP. As for sound, well, it's a just a 2.1 - don't expect wonders from the virtual surround...