I noticed this as well, but a while back... I tried to record the Reagan funeral services in the morning. I wake up late, and started the recording, telling it to start from the beginning of the event. I think I told it to add some time on the end as well. Anyhow, 8 hours or so later it was still going.
The thing that really sucked about the whole thing is that it would not let me play anything other than the last item that had been recorded. The funeral services were in the buffer (it said 8 hours plus), but I could not get to them...