[geeks] Portable audio recording solution?

[Matthew Braun]

I'm interested in doing some work with found audio and ambient sound, 
necessitating the purchase of a portable recording device. Having 
fiddled around with MiniDV cameras and enjoying their ability to be 
fully controlled from a PC I was wondering if there are any consumer 
grade (i.e. under $300) solutions that can do the same thing.

I'd like to be able to avoid having to dump the entire 
tape/disc/CF/whatever to my HD and then hand-hack it into bits, as I 
foresee having lots of little samples to work with. While a MP3 
recorder might do the job, I wonder if it there are any models that are 
up to the task of also recording live music (from a line in, not a mic).

I'm leaning towards MiniDisc, although I'm not sure which one to get or 
even why. I've heard that ATRAC supports some weird number of channels, 
though I wonder how important that really is.

It's a shame that the iPod doesn't support recording; if it did, I'd 
have to part with a kidney and go get one.