I think most of my misgivings about the Ratdvd thing have been covered already. I also think the name is a bit shit, too.
You should realise that this sort of thing is not new - back in the early days of DivX there was something called a "Micro DVD" that offered similar functionality. However it never became popular. Those who wanted a fully-featured DVD would download a DVDR rip. Those who wanted a quick download would download a movie-only DivX/XviD file.
Now the old DivX is obsolete and the new DivX went out of favour when it went commercial, XviD is the only choice IMO. Consistently highly regarded in Doom9's codec comparisons, and many standalone player makers specifically advertise XviD playback as a feature - which shows that an open source project, with no advertising budget whatsoever, can clearly make a significant impact in today's world.
I'd like to see XviD used more in our fan edit/preservation community. For material like VHS/TV rips that are not DVD quality to begin with, I think many people would rather download 1 or 2 700MB AVI files than a 4.3GB DVD. And for those edits that are put out on DVD, making an alternative AVI version available for those bandwidth-restricted users would help get the release out to a wider audience.
(I realise that this view may be at odds with some of the "bitrate whores" who frequent this forum - yes you know who you are, and I don't give a shit how big your TV is.
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