Car DVD Player Mysteries: What is AF?

There are a number of functions that today's modern car DVD players offer to their users. GPS, television watching, playing of any number of different DVD and CD formats...the list is endless.

A typical aftermarket player is chock full of high-tech features that can quickly make a person dizzy trying to figure out all the acronyms. One of these is "AF," so the question "Car DVD player mysteries: What is AF?" might be one worth considering before buying a player.

Put simply, "AF" is the abbreviation for what's called "Alternative Frequencies."

There's nothing really mysterious about this function, which many car DVD players for sale around the world offer, to be honest.

But what it can do is highly appreciated by many player owners who want to keep listening to a favorite station but might not be able to do so if one of the station's signals becomes too weak to be made sense of by the player.

For example, imagine driving around and suddenly getting interference or spillover from another adjacent radio frequency that starts "crowding out" your favorite station's signal.

Well, AF can allow a car DVD player's radio tuner to re-tune itself to a different, stronger, frequency that's being sent out by that same station or carried by another station when the first signal starts weakening.

Of course, the area in question has to offer a complimentary signal, but many stations do so nowadays.

In essence, the AF tuner will automatically scan for a supporting broadcast signal as soon as the original signal's strength begins to fall below a pre-defined level.

This happens behind the scenes of course, and the player will not switch over until it's found another signal carrying the same station (which has embedded certain identifying data in the signals it broadcasts), at which point the move will be almost seamless and unnoticeable.

Many owners of vehicles considering a car DVD player might want to make sure they're getting one with AF if they're really fond of a certain station and what it broadcasts.

As long as the region or country in which the player will be used allows radio stations to beam complimentary signals, the AF feature will operate as advertised. In many cases, it'll take over without a user even noticing what's going on.

As far as any problems that might pop up when the player utilizes the AF function, most users report that the device might go into a loop, fruitlessly cycling through in the background while looking for a stronger signal.

The spillover effect – when that happens – can sometimes intrude on the visible activities being carried out by the player in terms of static or hiss or loss of radio station information on the display screen, but that's about it.

For anybody considering maybe purchasing a nice car DVD player, having AF in addition to a number of other features can be one of the most powerful reasons for doing so. Today's players are very powerful in-car entertainment devices that give their users a level of convenience that the first players offered just a few years ago couldn't come close to matching. It would appear there's never been a better time to look at buying such a device.