More and more these days, people are equipping their family car with mobile DVD players so that they can watch DVD movies in the car. Ideally, the driver will be paying attention to the road in front of him or her, rather than watching DVD movies with the passengers, but mobile DVD players are ideal for people with kids. Imagine how much more pleasant those long drives will be when the kids can be kept busy watching movies and cartoons!
Mobile DVD players involve several components. The first component is the DVD player itself. This is part of what is called the head unit of the car stereo. It’s the brains and connects to the muscle, which consists of the video screen, amplifiers and loudspeakers. The video screen displays the images. Some systems have more than one screen, so that several people in the car can watch movies at the same time. many types of custom installation are possible. The video monitors you use will almost certainly be flat screens, with LCD being the most common type along with Plasma. The last component is the audio system, consisting of speakers and amplifiers.
How complicated, and how good, your mobile DVD player’s audio setup can be can vary with how much money you and what you expect to be able to play. In order to create the illusion of realistic sound, audio engineers have devised a dizzying array of home theater and audio formats. These days, most mp3 and media players, in tandem with surround processors, will play most and sometimes all of these file types. You should try to find a head unit that can process a variety of audio formats.
Most of the audio formats in use on DVDS were created to produce the illusion of surround sound. Surround processors create this illusion by separating the signal into five or more channels plus a subwoofer. The subwoofer handles the bass notes, which are not directional and often more felt than heard, and the rest is separated into five or more channels: a center channel, as movie dialogue is always in the center of the screen regardless of where the actor who is speaking is placed on the screen; a left and right channel, for the main sound effects, and two or more surround speakers, which give the illusion that the sound envelops the viewer in the environment of the movie. A downside of this is if your kids are watching Barney the Dinosaur for the 8 millionth time. You might need two separate audio systems—and headphones for the kids.
Typically movies require 5.1 sound to be at their best. High definition audio formats also require 5.1 sound capability. he 5.1 format indicates by the name 5.1 the number of discrete (separate) channels it allows. For example, 5.1 sound has to one center channel, a left and right channel, and two surround speakers and a subwoofer (the .1 part). Incidentally, you need at least two loudspeakers to create the illusion of sound having any direction other than from the speaker itself.
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