Hmm, seeing as I've already made some posts, I guess I should make a mention here. This is the first time I can recall actually getting involved in a forum on SPC though I do recognize a person on here, and I'm gonna wait and see if he remembers me lol.. But anyways, I think the first recolection of SPC for me was.. a long time ago lol. I don't think I can pin any sort of date to it, but I'd imagine very early 90s. I remember seeing it in a standard timeslot on YTV as a kid and then it just disappeared, only to happen across it playing at 3am one sleepless school night in elementary. lol I remember writing to YTV asking if there was anything to be done about the timeslot SPC was shown in. They sent a post card with all the network personality signatures on it back to me.
Anyways, as far as actual skills I could lend to the community, I suppose if anyone has any need of help in the encoding department, I can lend my skills, as I used to do encoding for some private channels on mIRC back in the day, and they say it's like riding a bike, you never forget lol. Also, I'm very proficient at all things computing... dunno if that helps much with an online forum though lol.

Well there is always an option of perhaps getting a petition together and sending it to disney.. can't hurt anyways, heh. And, as far as distribution of episodes that already exist, the best method would be to either do individual torrents or a batch of 13-26 episodes a shot. I know it's been a couple years since I've done dvd -> divx, but even when I'd gotten out of it it was still fairly easy.. so I can only imagine now how it must be. Also, considering the average size of a 26 min episode these days works out to 130-150 megs and is still pretty much dvd quality, it shows that the tools have gotten far better then last I was into this stuff. If anyone wants help with encoding things, though, I am willing to help, I'll just need a bit of practice to get my hand back into it ^^ That is, if no one else is able to.  As for creating multiple resoltuions, for say, psp owners or the like, there are tools out there that make conversion of large sized episodes of things quite simple. For the psp owners, there's PSPVideo9 and for others I'd suggest PocketDivxEncoder, both make very nice re-encodes in quite an impressive amoutn of time (video9 about 10-15 mins for a standard 26 min ep and PDE takes about 5-6 mins on my machine - AMD Athlon XP 2500+ @ 1.7 ghz and 1 gig (1024 megs) of ram, everyone's milage will vary though)

You know, being from Canada, you're able to get different perspectives on things, such as the current so-called 'anime generation' or what have you, mostly due to the fact that we lack networks like ToonAmi or whatever it is in the States. Basically, the only anime shown on-air as of the last time I even bothered to have cable, was Witch Hunter Robin... and. Um. Yu-Gi-Oh still. I think. Likely DBZ cuz it just never goes away. At any rate, my point being, and it's a similar one to what many have already stated, but seeing as I just stumbled across this place about.. 3 hours ago, I figured I'd make my intro posting an intelligent one, heh. But I digress. What I mean to say is that, in Western society, quirky stuff like SPC or Azumanga Daioh, or Kodomo no Omocha just won't find itself a niche, because from what I can tell from the younger ones these days, all they want is action in an anime. And then some darker stuffs for the older ones. Personally, my typical genre preference when it comes to anime is straight shoujo which definately will never see a market over here beyond dvd relase maybe. No, what I'm thinking is that the current generation of anime otaku, for lack of a better term, really doesn't have a large enough foothold on the market. As big as it has gotten, it got bottlenecked really fast, so that all that everyone sees, or ever cares to see, is the fare they put on TV, for the most part. Granted, that does give your average person with an interest in anime a reason to go to better resources, such as torrent sites or fansub release groups, but once they do that, it sort of eliminates them from the statistic that your major import and translation companies don't take into much consideration. It's sort of a catch-22 in that by having this inernet and electonrically based forum for accessing all this great volume of stuff, it perpetuates itself to remain in that venue, as your typical company will overlook that market and base what it brings over on what the masses are watching.
So, the only true way to return things to how they were, say, 10 odd years back, this whole online community would have to disappear, or become inaccessible to new fans. Not that I'm saying the electronic age of things is a bad venue for anime, it's just my view on the situation. Personally, I quite prefer the online version of things, because not only is it free as it is fans working for other fans, but it provides for a much wider taste and greater general acceptance. Which is why I think projects like this are great. To which, I hope that it continues on and grows into something big enough to be given notice, and hopefully it will inspire people to look into, and perhaps  continue to translate, older and quirkier series like KnO or KnT, as they likely will never find a niche in the 'official' marketplace. So we can only hope that fans can continue to have the ambition they have had, and the innovation for better methods to create, and to distribute their translations. I've seen it all, from when VHS was the only way you could find fan translation, to the very first digital fansubs, to the great migration to mIRC and private ftp's to finally the current BitTorrent evolution. And it isn't to say that everything is moving to digital, as there is still alot to be said about being able to meet and hang out with others that are just like you; ie, conventions, anime clubs, viewings and the like. I mean, personally, I don't enjoy watching anime as much as I do when I watch it with a group of people than when I watch it alone. Sadly, I live in a fairly small town and not that many people have much interest in what I have interest in, so I can only depend on conventions.

Wow. Long. lol. So basically, to sum things up, when you step back and look at things on the whole, yes, the current market is quite a sad state of affairs in some respects, but in others, it is not. It really depends  on how you look at it. There have been a good many gems released in the past year as far as the fansub community goes, and in the general market, more and more anime is making it into the mainstream. Granted, it might not be everything we want it to be, but hey, it's better than nothing. Like I said, it encourages those to reach out and look into it more, gives them an idea. And with that idea, it helps the online community to grow and expand, and in the end, makes for a better overall experience. And who knows, maybe someday the major companies will finally take notice of what is really desired by your average fan and start to show more variety, but in the meantime we aren't at a complete loss.