In terms of convenience and entertainment functionality, it's hard to fault today's new car DVD player models.

Many feature functions and capabilities that were unheard of just a few short years ago. Some come with screens as large as 7.5 inches wide and with graphics quality rivaling high-definition televisions.

One way that people control these players is through what's called the "graphical user interface," or GUI. So then; answering the question "Car DVD player mysteries: What is the GUI?" might be a something worth exploring.

Just about every computer geek or enthusiast out there will tell you that a GUI is often pronounced "gooey," though this monitor screen icon isn't sticky to the touch or otherwise harmful to one's health in a diabetes kind of way.

Rather, what it does is enable a computer user or a user of any other kind of device that makes use of a screen to interface its functions with its user to more easily control the device without knowing tons of complicated programming language and the like.

In addition to every computer operating system out there in the world today, a GUI is a standard feature on many car DVD players and works in conjunction with the touchscreen feature that more than a few of the best car DVD players feature nowadays.

Less-expensive players will still have a number of GUIs but may make use of a kind of "point-and-click" capability that almost anybody familiar with a computer and a mouse understands quite well. All one need do in these players is to use a cursor/director button, place the arrow over the GUI and then click on it and voila! All is well!

As far as where else one might see a GUI waiting to sneak up and help you from demonstrating your complete computer/computer user ignorance in this new digital world, just look at any cellular phone screen, standard telephones, high-definition televisions, computer operating systems and anything, really, that requires a visitor or user to interact with a device.

One might see it (the GUI) on an office building directory terminal, to name just one example where people have pretty much been using graphical user interfaces for several decades.

Additionally, there's almost no difference between a GUI used in the computer and one in a car DVD player or cellular phone touchscreen, other than the way the GUI will work behind the scenes to bring up information from its memory processor and then display it, which is really all we need to know on that front.

Because car DVD players work with a limited amount of memory (they make use, generally speaking, of a Windows-based operating system) they are just as likely to suffer from memory recall and prioritization issues as any other GUI.

When the item malfunctions it's usually necessary to reenter the operating system through a supplied menu and then reboot the DVD player. The whole process only takes a minute, so there's little to worry about.

For those considering one of the new-style car DVD players, it's actually preferable to find one with a touchscreen and that has a number of GUIs, because these graphical user interface icons have made controlling the device as easy as opening up a bottle of soda pop.

And in truth, they have enabled makers of these devices to offer these players at prices unheard of just a few years ago, so join the digital revolution and add one of these players to your car as soon as possible.