Top gear on west coast Discovery channel

[87coupe]

FYI: Top Gear is being shown on Discovery channel. Todays episode has the Lotus Elise.

[kycarguy 935]

Im watching it now. Never seen it before and its a pretty good show.

[Vonzipper]

watching it right now, what a great show

[87coupe]

I've downloaded a bunch of last seasons episodes. Very glad to see it on US television.

[Doug&Julie]

Is there a regular schedule? ..what nights is it on?

[cjr1]

Not sure if west coast schedule is same as here,but Top Gear is on Wednesday @ 9pm (eastern).Another new show on History channel is called AutoManiacs.It's hosted by Goldberg.Last nights show was "Death Cars".Had James Dean's story of how he died & a nice 550 spyder.Some of the episodes are good,some not(stupid filler,incorrect info).Also on Wednesday @ 9pm.

Chris


3.2 rebuild under way,EBS just called,my heads need all new valves.........

[Doug&Julie]

Originally posted by cjr1
Not sure if west coast schedule is same as here,but Top Gear is on Wednesday @ 9pm (eastern).

Good thing they're moving Smallville to Thursdays then! Now if I can only remember to watch it next Wednesday...

Sorry to hear about your motor...

[cjr1]

Doug, Thanks for the sentiment.Motor had 156K.Bought car last year w/ no ppi.Thats ok because I'm a mechanic & am doing this myself.First one but w/ info out there,not too difficult.Just take your time & like they say in woodworking,"Measure twice,Cut once".
Ever do any DE or AX around.See your in West Chester?

Chris

[cyprusx]

I can't believe they were driving those cars on the beach!!!! I wonder if it was fresh or salt water they were spraying all around with that sand.... Looked very cool and fun but made me sick at the same time.

[arrivederci]

Yea, my TIVO caught it (keyword 'Porsche') and its an americanized version of the british show. The reviews and driving footage is the same but it appears that they re-shot some of the filler -- such as the track time board (which was empty until the Exige time was put up there). They also did some stuff to introduce the show to newbies -- like introducing the Stig and their test track.

Most of it was old to me, but I'm sure there'll be new stuff in the future.

[Doug&Julie]

Originally posted by cjr1
Doug, Thanks for the sentiment....Ever do any DE or AX around.See your in West Chester?

HIJACK!

...it's kind of a joke with us...every time something fun comes up on the PCA calendar (or other) we have a "family gathering" or some other priority. So I tend to miss them. I've only been to one AX and that was as a spectator (got some pretty cool video, though!). I'm hoping to do more, but we'll just have to take them one at a time...

Otherwise, if you see a brown 911 (almost looks burgandy) be sure to wave!



END HIJACK

[cjr1]

Sorry for the hijack!

Hope to see you around!

Chris

[Doug&Julie]

Where in Cinci are you?

[MichiganMat]

It looks like ****.
It sounds like ****.

What a terrible crossover from the original show. The NTSC conversion has sped everything up by 20% so Clarkson and the boys are rushing rushing talking talking can't slow down!!!. They also took out most of the art scenes (the slow shots of the cars moving, a bunch of the comentary too) so it looks rushed. You don't really get a chance to really enjoy the reports, they are constantly moving onto something else.

Trust me: The US version is the hyperactive, uber-annoying, ADD version of the original. If you haven't seen the real thing, you're truely missing out. The BBC version doesn't even have commercials

[tiorio]

Originally posted by MichiganMat
The NTSC conversion has sped everything up by 20%...

Eh? A half hour is still a half hour...

[Doug&Julie]

I'm quite certain European (and British) tv shows don't follow the rigid half hour / hour format that the US does. We have "Coupling" on DVD and the episodes are a bit longer than half an hour. Also try watching "So Graham Norton" sometime...it looks like a porn movie chopped by a network when they try to fit it into the US half hour/hour format.

[ubiquity0]

Originally posted by tiorio
Eh? A half hour is still a half hour...

...except when 10 minutes of that are ads

[MichiganMat]

TopGear is an hour-long show with no commercials.

PAL runs at a slower frequency than NTSC. It looks like they just sped up the film to meet the US standards. We did a comparison of the US Lotus segment VS our UK version, and the US segment was much faster, choppier, and less enjoyable.

They also chopped the widescreen of the original to do pan-n-scan which looks horrid IMO.

[Doug&Julie]

I wonder if they're available on DVD? I have a mulit-region DVD player that could play "imports"....

[tiorio]

Originally posted by MichiganMat
TopGear is an hour-long show with no commercials.

PAL runs at a slower frequency than NTSC. It looks like they just sped up the film to meet the US standards. We did a comparison of the US Lotus segment VS our UK version, and the US segment was much faster, choppier, and less enjoyable.

They also chopped the widescreen of the original to do pan-n-scan which looks horrid IMO.

Sorry, my response should have been a tad more techincal. All cutting to make room for ads aside, when you do standards conversion from 29.97fps NTSC to 25fps PAL or from PAL to NTSC you don't speed up or slow down anything. You actually need to create interpolated frames so that one second of PAL = 1 second of NTSC. To speed up from 25fps to 30fps would be VERY noticable and audio sync would be lost. It's MUCH easier and 'prettier' to simply run the whole show through a standards conversion box.

Where it gets faster, choppier, more cutty, etc. is when the still-normal-speed show is cut up to make room for ads.

Sorry for the abreviated post above causing any confusion!