SPEED Channel... what happened?
 

It seems to have been going downhill, and I think I'm watching the most retarded thing I've ever seen on it as I type this. It's a motocross-style race with cars instead of dirt bikes. Besides the lack of intelligence from the philistine announcers (hey guys, Accord sedan != CRX), guess what they've decided to call this motocross-with-cars?






















AUTOCROSS. n00bs.

LOL! I haven't seen this yet... Will be on the look out for it.

In a word, NASCAR ownership.

No more WRC, but at least you can get ALMS and Transam type racing.

Speed TV sucks. Sucks harder every year. After they started catering to the Nascar crowd it was all downhill. Wrecked, dangerous drives, monster jam, chop cut and on and on and on. It's all cheap to produce dreck.

Monster Jam! Oh wait Im not 8 anymore. Thats all I ever see on, I never see the hilarity you guys post about.

^Agreed... And it makes me wonder why the Hell I watched it when I was a kid. Good-bye years of life. :(

I still like monster jam, but I do agree not alot of good racing, more nascar now, boring, and those auctions, realllllly borring

half that shit is totally unwatchable. I refuse to believe that anyone has ever watched "Pass Time" in its entirety. Fucking unwatchable.

I sent them an email about six months ago, lamenting the loss of WRC, and commenting on the current lack of quality programs. No response.

Wow, personally, I think that shit sounds awesome and I still have all my teeth.

I only have it for F1, it's the only thing they do right. Who else can't wait to see MSC on the timing board again? I'm, like, just-had-sex-for-the-first-time-in-my-life-and-it-was-with-Jessica-Alba-and-Jessica-Biel-at-the-same-time psyched.

The point is, they were trying to be clever (heh, get it Earl? I combined the word "auto" with the "cross" from motocross!) and instead they named it after a pre-existing sport, which is fail.

Speed sometimes still shows decent racing (the kind with some right turns) but it's often at weird times and I no haz DVR. Lately I have managed to catch some episodes of TDI Cup racing and some British Touring Car action on weekends. This time of year ALMS/Rolex/Koni Challenge, F1, etc are on break, but Speed does show that stuff when in season.

Mostly what I hate about Speed is that their prime time lineup is 100% trash. There's got to be some way for them to pay the bills without having to air that bullshit. I'm no TV executive but off the top of my head I can think of about a dozen hours (probably more) worth of original technical programming that would appeal to a wide audience of car guys.

I'll tell you what, I've been watching the hell out of some HD Theater. They've got WRC coverage, a full hour per event. They play it in prime time and rerun each episode quite a bit so you have several chances to see it. One show called GT Racer covers rich old bastards flogging immaculately kept classic cars on awesome tracks like Spa, which is cool. They've got another show where these two Brits buy used cars for cheap and fix them up to resell. They show a good bit of the hands-on maintenance and repairs and mention problems that are common to the particular model car in question. I'm not much into classic cars but I sometimes even watch Wayne Carini's show because he gets some cool stuff on there and you can tell he's a genuinely nice guy who knows his stuff and yet isn't a raging douche, which is refreshing to see on TV these days. HD Theater isn't totally about cars (they have science, engineering and history type shows too) but I still find myself watching that channel more than Speed.

+1
Plus they showed the Isle of Mann, quality tv.

Yeah that's some hardcore racing there, good stuff. Sometimes I can't understand what those riders are saying though, like I'm watching Trainspotting. I need English subtitles for that English.

Haha I know what you mean. I love that race. I have 4 or 5 dvd's. The only thing I watch on Speed is AMA and Moto GP.

yeah, HD theater is piling up quality car guy entertainment and I don't even have cable TV.

the only things good on speed is F1 and w2w racing, especially different forms of touring car

Like everyone else said, only thing I watch speed for is F1.

I also record every supercross and motocross race.

Everything else is garbage

I was talking with Dave Despain the other day and he was saying that the crap shows like pinks, pass time, monster jam, wrecked, etc. get much higher viewer ship that a lot of racing shows. The exception is NASCAR shows and F1. Another problem is that the carriers (Cable TV providers, satellite providers) sort of dictate the content of the channel. They demand a certain amount of viewer ship else threaten to drop the channel from their line up.

Well if that shit funds the "real" events that's fine by me.

btw- I found the Dakar Rally updates on Versus.

I like watching pass time in its entirety, I think its a nice twist on game shows and drag racing.

Though I do agree HD theater is where its at now for alot of good car shows\races.

Boo.

I guess the reason I even care about Speed is because of what it could be. When it first came out I was really excited. Maybe I've changed, or maybe the content has changed, but almost everything is horrid dreck on there now.

I'm going to have to look into this "HD Theatre" stuff. Sounds awesome. Can you watch it over the comp? I'm stuck in a hotel for awhile...

:giggle: I was just reminded of this post. I'm 23, it's Friday night and I am sitting at home watching Monster Jam! :bowrofl: So sad. It's only on Speed because the remote is on the other side of the room and I'm too lazy to get off my ass.

yeah, it's been shitty for awhile now. although i do seem to record alot of good shit. i've been watching dtm, british touring car, tdi cup, and my favorites are f1, koni challenge, speed world challenge. i've also been watching scca runoffs every year, although i believe it's not gonna be televised this year. try to watch mx5 cup when i can catch it. i also like pass time when they are in san antonio (which seems to be all the time) because i see friends or peeps i know on there. they also did an all turbo show from san antonio that was awesome. i also try to watch out for supercars exposed, sometimes they show the texas mile on there and i have had some car club members and friends on there before.

There was a great TDI race on last week, lots of physical racing and a lot of crashes, which in reality is what everyone hopes to see. Who would think eco friendly diesel racing could be so much fun. Honestly, without the Nascar and the bullshit "reality" shows, and maybe reduce the amount of Barrett Jackson, SPEED could actually still be a decent channel.

Shit. Monster jam is on the rest of the night until paid programming. Shit. Sometimes they have euro touring cars and challenge races but thats getting rarer and rarer err day.

Fixed, a bit, haha.

It's not like they're Priuses (Prii?). ;)

It's amazing that they get an average of around 25mpg in race trim going full out. They were saying how those cars only go through like 2 tanks of fuel per race season. Crazy.

How is living with Down's?

+ 1 on HD theater.

and the only time I even somewhat pay attention to pass time is when I turn it into a drinking game... even then it still sucks.

I always just watch the first run (if the cars don't suck ass) and quickly decide which one of the two non-ringer contestants knows what he is talking about...and which one is a fucktard. From there on out it's the same plot and story...just uglier characters each time.

I remember when SPEED was nothing but every form of racing from all around the world...save NASCAR. I used to stay up watching WRC and neat documentaries.

NASCAR and reality shows killed Speedvision. Occasionally there is still some good eye candy, but I don't feel like I'm learning anything about cars or racing when I watch anymore. Everything they have now I could find online...at my own leisure.

It always seems like the crummy programming is on when I can actually watch as well. I knock out that damn mile long "honey do" list, plop down in my recliner, turn the tv on...and it's dirt bike racing or Monster Jam or 43 cars droning around in circles. I almost always turn it off within 5 minutes.

This is why I usually just stay in the garage. TV sucks in general (except Top Gear).

Speaking of Top Gear, it's great that the torrents are in HD .mkv files now for better viewing, but it plays havok with my ability to get Vuze to export the files to my PS3. It used to take like 3 seconds for Vuze to convert a SD file for playback, but the HD ones take days! Even worse, Vuze has to be running the whole time, uninterrupted, to do it, and it soaks up what little system resources my old Dell laptop has the entire time.

Anyone have a suggestion?

Being a total n00b in the Torrent world, I downloaded a few TG's and I was surprised to see that they had showed up on my ps3. I don't remember setting anything up for it, and it was almost instant.

After watching the TDI cup, I kinda wished I would have run in that series. I had the oppurtunity to, but it was nearly as much $ as running Formula BMW.

What torrent program are you using, Bond, and were the episodes you downloaded in .mkv format?

I use Vuze too and yes they were .mkv I believe.

Try putting the files on a usb drive and plug it into the ps3? I do that sometimes with standard def programs on a 360.

Tried that, my .mkv files were too big for the drive so I used a .avi and that didn't work, the console didn't recognize that there was anything on the drive.

I drove a stockish 09 TDI with H&R coilovers. Fantastic car, especially when you consider its about 25K. Really fun. Took a lot of getting used to with regard to shift times though. Lots of TQ plus low redline means lots of shifting initially. But the thing simply cruised up hill in 5th or even 6th gear without trouble, and I am at 6000-8000 feet. The thing made just over 20 psi peak boost easaly, but it tapered down to about 15 at redline. Put a larger turbo on there and you have a real monster. Its decently quick in stock form though.

Plus diesel are cool because the more fuel you put to it, the more power it makes. You just have to keep it cool. No AFR to worry about, no spark map either. More boost actually helps it run cooler :drool: