Automobile Forum

Been looking at some older videos on Youtube from SPEEDVISION programing back in the day. It's cool that some people have uploaded stuff from Speedvision days including classic car races and the host of great old motoring type tv programs that often lived on Speedvision and a bit made it to SPEED later on (though SPEED was never a match for SPEEDVISION).

It all made me realise that from in Canada about early in 1997 to 2001 Speedvision was a channel I probably had on the tube 70-75% of the time. I really miss that network.

Today it's mostly dumbed down (grade 5 level) and shitty t.v. shows and especially all too many faux-reality t.v. shows on all channels, I get sick of it all. Velocity (called Discovery Velocity up here in Candanavia) could not carry Speedvision's proverbial jock strap. It has a few entertaining shows but more of that BULLSHIT, FAKE REALITY SHIT!

With Speedvision we had all sorts of motor sports. F1, (of course over abundance of NASCAR ) Speedvision Touring Cars, British Touring Car, German Touring Car, Australian Sports Cars, American LeMans, WRC, Moto GP, NHRA and other racing. We have nothing like that today. Racing is mixed all over the dial or not even covered anymore. I can't recall the last time I saw an NHRA event on t.v.

American Muscle Car, My Classic Car, Motortrend Magazine, Dream Car Garage, Legends of Motorsport, and even in the SPEED days, Two Guys Garage and David Stacey's Gearz. I'm sure I am forgetting others. All had life on Speedvision.

The Lost Drive In on Saturday nights and all the motorsports follow up /news shows. The great aviation shows like Great Plane and Planes of Fame etc. well Speedvision RULED for me.

I really wish we had a channel that modeled itself like Speedvision did. But up hear in Canuckistan we don't. Maybe in the Excited States you may have some sort of channel(s) like that but I doubt it.


Anyways, YOUTUBE has been fun to trip down SPEEDVISION memory lane for me of late.

Speedvision was good. But I suspect you're remembering it better than it actually was. For what it's worth, Velocity seemed pretty good to me. Not good enough for me to order it when the free preview expired, but good.

Also - the reality stuff isn't all bad. In fact a lot of it's pretty entertaining, and it can be informative. If done right.

You know what you pointed out is great for car fans? YouTube!

You can watch anything specific to cars on there. Chris Harris is more entertaining than Top a Gear for real enthusiasts. And there's access to great foreign shows such as Wheeler Dealers, for people like me who are too cheap to get cable.

I even managed to find the all female celebrity race from the Adelaide F1 Grand Prix back in the early 90s that ended up being one of the greatest non-professional races you'll see. You can watch the last few laps of this year's Bathurst enduro, where 5 different brands of GT racers battled for the win.

Personally, I have recently enjoyed watching an MR2 Turbo beat a GT-R, Supra etc. in a Best Motoring race and a series of reviews on the E46 M3 and CLK55 when searching for another fun car.

YouTube and the Internet overall have really given a lot of power to the customer at the expense of the traditional service provider.

Yeah, Youtube has its place and I do search through it at times, but it is not a full replacement for good channels on t.v. That said of the 200 or so that I could get if I want to cough, cough pay much extra for, really only about 5%-10% are worth buying.

It's too bad the state of broadcast and cable t.v. today. I think back in the day when I had maybe 12-20 channels total I had more quality programming and more entertainment than today.

So yes, we have other choices but with the ability of cable/sat. t.v. to easily get into our homes and to be able to offer choice, it's sad at how lousy much of it has become.

Are you a luddite?

I got rid of cable tv maybe 5 years ago and don't regret it at all. Internet + Netflix is still way cheaper, plus plenty of good content on Youtube.

Shaw Cable internet plans not bundling up with other services start at $50.00 month. after a 1/2 price for 6 months. It gets you 60gb transfer total. Next for $60.00 month after 1/2 price for 6 months gets you 125gb transfers. Next is 250gb per month at $70.00. Then 400gb per months for $90.00 . Finally 750gb transfer rate at $120.00 per month.

You can see if you and your household become big internet/streaming users you can eat up the limits and can cost you a lot just to keep your internet. Plus you add the cost of Netflix and you are not saving as much money as you may believe. So yeah you will save a few bucks per month over the bloated and all too many stupid channels with all too many stupid tv shows programming of cable but you will not get rich off the few bucks you may save. Plus if ditch my cable will lose the few channels for the few shows I care to watch and more so many of the sports that I do watch for the most part.