We do not altogether get compact home-cinema systems, but if attractively big electronic kit is actually not fun to look at for you and domestic space is an unavoidable issue for you, we have a compact all-in-one system just for you. Even though small speakers tend to have crap sound, the Pioneer’s DCS-363 actually doesn’t sound crappy. The main DVD/amp unit and down firing sub woofer are pretty and reassuringly large, but the central speakers are too small for comfort, while four satellite speakers are mere 100mm square cubes. All this made up to outrageous sound quality and a nice speaker size ratio which has nice looks. Plugging the speakers is simple thanks to the simple colour-coding system. Similar levels of user friendliness are found in the DVD deck’s onscreen menus, which are clear and immaculately organized despite being surprisingly feature-laden. Highlights among these features include up scaling of DVDs to 720p or 1080i (though not 1080p), and video adjustments such as gamma and chroma level tweaks alongside the usual sharpness, contrast and brightness options. If you have all sorts of video and audio files stored on all kinds of media, you’ll also appreciate the DCS-363’s playback flexibility. MP3, WMA, JPEG and DiVX files are all playable, and there’s even a USB input for accessing files on USB storage devices. On the bad side, this system can’t actually record anything itself.