I'm a student about to enter a conservatory next year for classical
performance, and I'm looking at options for recording concerts, master
classes and other important events. I have a minidisc already, but I always
cringe at recording one-shot performances with it due to the compression,
and the difficulty at outputting digitally to the computer. My dad has a
Sony DAT walkman, which I absolutely love, so I'm considering buying a
copy-protection free recorder such as the Sony PCM-M1. However, before
shelling out a ton of money for this recorder, how long is DAT anticipated
to be around? I plan to use it for myself, probably digitally outputting the
DAT to computer and burning the files to CD-R or DVD as a backup, then
editing and burning CDs for friends and family. I just want to make sure
media is available before I go down this route. Finally, I need something
portable, so lugging a computer to concerts etc is not feasible. Any insight
would be very much appreciated.

Erik