Digital Audio Tape - a method of storing audio in a digital format on a magnetic tape in cassette form. The encoding can be at 32kHz, 44.1kHz (which is equivalent to a cd), 48kHz and some support 90kHz recordings as well. I use DAT primarily as a medium of going from field to cd. The tapes have a longer capacity than cd (coventionally 74 minutes versus 2 hours but the most on a cd I've seen so far is 80 minutes and the longest DAT tapes I've seen are 3 hours). Additionally DAT tapes are well protected and are not prone to things such as scratching. However the shelf life of a DAT is much shorter than that of a CD. After 5 years, archiving onto another DAT or CD is recommended.