Dan Dugan wrote
>
>> When buffering came out as an option on digital recorders
>> it was for me one of the most important recording advances. I
>> had pressed record 1/2 sec too late and lost the beginnings
>> of calls too many times as tried to conserve battery power.
Does using the prerecord buffer actually save any power? It still has to
digitise the sound and buffer it, even if it's then discarding it. I use it to
save having to go through so much audio to find the call I intended capturing,
and to save memory, although that's not such an issue now that large memory
cards are so cheap. $1 an hour, and it'll last me for days of intermittent
recording.
>> For me 2 sec is just about enough. I would like to see the
>> manufacturers at the affordable end of the market offer a
>> menu of say 2, 4,6 & 10sec buffering. It cant be technically
>> too difficult these days.
>
> It requires a large buffer memory, costing $$ and power. You
> won't find it in consumer-level products because consumers
> aren't asking for it.
Surely with the price of memory dropping yearly, a couple of extra MB for the
buffer wouldn't cost much. I've no idea about its power consumption. But if the
Sony PCM-M10 can have a 5 second buffer for a reasonable cost and still have
good battery life, there's no reason why the others can't too. Lots of the
lower cost recorders have either no prerecord buffer or only a couple of
seconds.
Maybe consumer choice is the main reason it's not so common.
Peter Shute
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