Top Gear (2002 TV series)/Home Video Releases
Since 2003, Top Gear has released compilations, box sets, and specially-filmed material on DVD and Blu-Ray.
Due to the BBC's blanket licence in regards to copyrighted footage and music that would otherwise necessitate purchase from the necessary rights holders, many challenges and episodes are not presented in the manner in which they were initially broadcast.
Series Box Sets
Main article: Top Gear (2002 TV series)/Home Video Releases/Series Box Sets
Criticisms
There are many problems with the series box sets which make them generally unworthwhile purchases for fans of the show.
Incompleteness
The most obvious of these is the incompleteness of the show's coverage. Even if one legally owns every Top Gear home video release, they can only watch the latter 14 series produced from 2007 - 2015, and fans living in the UK will need to import their copies of Series 9, 12, 18, 21 & 22 from mainland Europe, as they were never sold in the former.
Furthermore, Blu-Ray releases of the series are very limited, and only Series 14 - 17 are available in this manner.
Loss of quality
The versions of the episodes released on home media are not at their original broadcast quality; in order to fit several episodes onto space-limited discs, they have been compressed. Usually, this is not particularly noticeable unless one looks at finer details such as car number plates.
Gratuitous cuts
Typically, cuts were made because the original footage contained copyrighted material or the content featured might have been deemed objectionable. However, certain releases cut footage as a simple cost-cutting measure and did not need to be removed. The worst offender of these are the Series 10 box sets. Due to featuring 10 episodes, unnecessary cuts were made to The News and Star-in-a-Reasonably-Priced-Car segments in order to cut each episode down to 50 minutes, so that it could fit on to three discs as opposed to a fourth as a cost-cutting measure.
Incorrect framerate
Region 1 releases have been "stretched" to 60 FPS, which creates intermediary ghost frames that are noticeable under playback.
Lack of bonus features
Most Region 2 releases of the series box sets do not feature bonus material, which is odd since the Region 1 releases typically do.
Confusing release dates
Due to BBC/2Entertain and BBC America's differing approaches to releasing box sets, as well as the plethora of licenced European vendors, series were often released out-of-order and years after their original broadcast.
Compilation Box Sets
Main article: Top Gear (2002 TV series)/Home Video Releases/Great Adventures Releases
Main article: Top Gear (2002 TV series)/Home Video Releases/The Challenges Releases
