Watched the new one before work this morning. Not too shabby.

Yay! They're doing a "Vancouver" and splitting up season 15 into 2 halves across the year.

I am deeply in love with the new episode. I think I might have to watch it again.... immediately.

Assuming that was roughly the same bit of the Blue Ridge Parkway that I'm familiar with, it's a shame they couldn't do serious driving on it, but honestly those speed limits are sensible. There are campgrounds on either side of the road, pedestrians crossing all the time, people pulling over and then crossing to take pictures, idiots just slowing down in the road to shoot pictures out their windows. Even at the posted speeds that road seems to bring out a blithe carelessness that makes it remarkably nerve-wracking to drive on.

And when the fall colors are in full bloom, or whatever fall colors do that isn't blooming, just forget it. They shouldn't even pretend it's a functional road at that point, just close it and run a Disneyland parking lot tram for sightseeing.

If they really wanted a driver's road with the scenery and swoopiness the Blue Ridge promises, Skyline Boulevard in NorCal would have been a better choice. A genuine driver's road that sees its share of supercars already, running along the mountain ridge between Silicon Valley and the ocean. And plenty of good destinations to head to from there, Sears Point coming particularly to mind.

(Or better yet, from Skyline to TechShop for some kind of DIY challenge involving plasma torches.)

I don't know if you can find drive-by-shooting school in NorCal, though. At least not formally.

Yeah the one time I was on the BRP as a kid it seemed pretty useless as an actual road. With all the problems Top Gear has previously had in obtaining US filming permits I'm sure they don't want to be seen racing around too much. They should forthwith reserve America for cheap car challenges, and save the serious driving tests for countries who care less. I'm still waiting for a cannonball run across somewhere that's fairly empty, wonder how Australia would feel about that? Better yet run in 4 teams... UK, US, Australian, and German Top Gear crews.

I am deeply in love with the new episode. I think I might have to watch it again.... immediately.

Interesting to see the reach of Top Gear into areas we only tend to hear about for the wrong reasons. Would it be correct to call the lovingly photographed (filmed?) epic scenery "properly biblical"?

That episode was properly everything. Every frame was awesome, and they kept the lying down to a minimum. Sure, they played up the danger of landing in Iraq but not being cautious would look foolish to those who don't understand the regions. Can't wait for my friend Rob (the Marine) to get back from his UK holiday so I can find out what he thought.

Heh, look at me calling his vacation a "holiday".

Next Top Gear series coming - Jeremy and the Fat Man?

Edited January 18, 201115 yr by padam

Aww, I was actually genuinely concerned. That was a nasty knock.

They're Back!

They're Back!

Classic! James May in a 500hp go kart that the New Stig threw around the track faster than anything else they have tested. Richard Hammond in a 1 mile race between a VW Beetle and a Turbocharged 911 - the beetle having been dropped vertically from 1 mile and falling under gravity.

Oh yes!!

Edited January 24, 201115 yr by Craig Sawyers

Classic! James May in a 500hp go kart that the New Stig threw around the track faster than anything else they have tested. Richard Hammond in a 1 mile race between a VW Beetle and a Turbocharged 911 - the beetle having been dropped vertically from 1 mile and falling under gravity.

Oh yes!!

I'd advise against calling an Ariel a go kart should Wayne come 'round.

His is but a mere go kart compared to that thing.

Annoyed that I now have three "s16e01"s on my computer. Stupid pirates.

Can anyone point me to a place to download episodes? Cancelled my digital cable ... I miss Top Gear terribly, but not willing to pay $60/mo for it. (Pretty much the only TV I watched. Streaming Netflix FTW.))

Torrents. Pirate Bay is a good place to start, or eztv.it. Don't think piracy is necessarily an evil in this case since it doesn't air here in any kind of legitimate form (BBC America episodes are edited and not exactly fresh).

Can't believe that the unknown comic beat Tom Cruise, and on 4 wheels. I figured the 2 wheel madman approach was the best we'd see. Jay Kay must be dying to get in there right now.

I like TvT as they keep every episode of every season archived & are pretty good at circulating the 720P versions...but someone over at The Box is putting out the 1080P versions this season...I'm assuming he's just deinterlacing the 1080i 50Hz British feed...

I pay to get BBC America HD & would gladly pay to have the episodes on blu-ray...

Edited January 24, 201115 yr by emelius

...but someone over at The Box is putting out the 1080P versions this season...I'm assuming he's just deinterlacing the 1080i 50Hz British feed...

I just checked the Box and the 1080p version they have is the transport stream so it is basically the raw data. Other then that there is only the normal 1080i version...

finalgear.com for some torrents ( and a lively forum )

Usenet (try the handy search string "Top Gear" (and optionally "720p" if thats your fancy)

at places like binsearch.info or nzbclub.com

The Box is awesome for QI & F1 too...

although my OPPO doesn't like something about the way that guy encodes...it's specific to his uploads...comes out splotchy...trying to find out what he does differently w/o sounding ungrateful...

Edited January 24, 201115 yr by emelius

There's always the Old School "Victorian Tea Party" of UKNova

http://www.vanityfair.com/ontheweb/features/2007/03/piratebay200703

I find download services (RS, HF, MU) much easier than torrents and much faster too without my IP being logged by every tracker in the world.

The FTP shares on finalgear.com are the best.

i had a 720P version of the latest Top Gear downloaded in under 20 minutes. Magnet link off TPB. I think that's pretty decent. i've found most of the download services to be a pain, even with programs that supposedly get around the multi file problem. to each his own.

Most offer single file DL's for premium users now and my luck with torrents is nowhere near as good. Now if I could just get the PS3 to play mkv's since it seems that all the 720P rips are encoded that way.

I've been using handbrake to do the conversion but it's been unreliable at best, any suggestions? And it's slow as frack as well even on seemingly powerful compys.

Get a client that can play H.264 mkv's natively.

e.g. http://www.wdc.com/en/products/products.aspx?id=320

There are many others

iPeople may want to install http://www.perian.org/ (http://www.perian.org/#detail)