microdrive mode in beta player?

[zilla31]

anyone know what this is or how it works? i'm debating on buying a new microdrive for use almost exclusively w/ video and betaplayer... thanks!

[GSmith]

I don't know for sure, but I would suspect that it pre-caches more data so that it could power down the drive to save power.
[google]
From http://www.pdarcade.com/modules.php?name=Forums&file=posting&mode=topicreview&t=3372&popup=1

Betaplayer has a microdrive mode where it attempts to pre-buffer and keep the buffer filled. It also fully loads mp3's to ram and then turns off the microdrive to save battery. You should try it out.

The AVI can be loaded pretty quick, but with a microdrive its better to buffer it, which can take a bit of time due to limits in transfer speed to ram.

[zilla31]

hmm - sounds interesting. maybe betaplayer takes some of the bite out of the battery drain of microdrives...