For those of you underprivileged Amish petrolheads or those who simply have resided underneath large rocks for the past 10 years or so, I would like to introduce you to the most brilliant automotive television show ever – Top Gear.
Top Gear is a British television program(e) that features automotive commentary and lunacy by Jeremy Clarkson, James May, and Richard Hammond. They are also writers and personalities of the similarly named Top Gear Magazine on sale in the UK at at exhorbitantly inflated prices here in the US. If you have never seen the show, I urge you to check it out.
Unfortunately, due to the unique way that the BBC is funded, the show cannot be broadcast immediately in the US after standard production. The rights to music licenses in Europe is much different than the rules in America and they are allowed to use almost any music that they wish to when broadcasting there. To purchase the rights to use the same music in the US would be cost prohibitive. For that reason there is a 6-9 month delay on the broadcasts coming the BBC America or the Discovery Channel and the show commentaries are re-shot and dubbed.
Well we wouldn’t drive 500 horsepower cars if we were patient. For those of you like me who prefer not to wait, there are generous uploaders of torrent files who make it possible for those of us underprivileged viewers to be satiated just hours after the broadcast each Sunday evening.
To get the files to download, you will need to go here:
http://www.finalgear.com/
There, you will find links to download very small torrent files. These files are like maps of where to find the pieces of the large video file hidden around the internet. You will need a torrent client program to open them. I prefer this one:
http://www.utorrent.com/
The files will require codecs to view. These may or may not work in your version of Windows Media Player. Regardless, there is a superior product that is conveniently priced exactly right at free! It is called VLC Media Player and you can get it here:
http://www.videolan.org/vlc/
That should be what you need to waste the next two months of your life catching up on the last 13 seasons of the best show on earth.
Now any internet video download proposition demands some moral and legal consideration. I am in no way endorsing or encouraging the illegal download or theft of any copyrighted material. That being said, there are no other ways that I have found to watch this show in the US and it will not be marketed here for several months. When it comes on live, I like to watch it again so that I can support in the viewership of the show in my market. The choice is yours but however you watch it – enjoy the show!
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