I love long-form videos that tell information and stories. Documentaries about most any topics, especially ones that last an hour or more, are my bread and butter. But when I’m using YouTube on my TV, I can’t tell from thumbnails what the quality of a channel is. Sometimes I find gold, but other times it’s obvious they’re using an AI voice over or AI imagery and I immediately turn it off. I’m so tired of trudging through the slop, even though it’s just beginning.

So for now, I figure I’ll check with y’all - do you have any preferred/recommended channels that make the sort of video I’m looking for, that are still human-made? I’d love to hear about them.

    • anon6789@lemmy.world
      17·
      9 days ago

      I’m on a Nebula guest pass this week someone generously gave me when I talked about having a hard time finding AI things.

      It’s a very stark contrast scrolling through the 2 feeds next to each other!

      Nebula has a more Fediverse feel. I don’t believe it has any kind of real recommendation algorithm, it just has a few suggested categories, like this is Women’s Month, so they highlight female creators. Less people contributing, but every video looks watchable even if it’s not something I have interest in. The main issue I’ve had is getting used to a more Netflix looking system to find videos, and just the fact since everything looks interesting, I haven’t actually watched much since it’s stuff I want to watch when I can actually pay attention instead of it just being moreso background noise. For the $60 a year or whatever it is, it is looking quite tempting.

      Scrolling YouTube next to it feels much more like looking at Facebook. Clear algorithm based feed. Lots of mental junk food type recommendations. Real content looks the same as AI. I’m on premium and still have to hear the in-video ad reads. Much more variety (almost no electronic music production or synth type stuff I could find on Nebula, not much on animation, for example) but you have to wade through a lot of crud to find the good stuff.

  • Bricked@feddit.org
    43·
    9 days ago

    Even if you can’t afford Nebula, I recommend browsing its explore section, because many of its high quality creators and videos are also on YouTube. The following are some of my favourite creators on YouTube.

    30 minute animated documentary-style videos: LEMMiNO, melodysheep, fern, Hoog, neo, PolyMatter, Imperial, Cipher, Real Engineering, Mustard

    Shorter explainer videos: Posy, Kurzgesagt, PBS Space Time, Sciencephile the AI, minutephysics, Steve Mould, Half as Interesting

    • glimse@lemmy.world
      23·
      9 days ago

      Sad to see no love for one of the coolest dudes in Nebula, Grady from Practical Engineering.

      If you like seeing how civil engineering projects happen, there’s no better channel. It reminds me of PBS shows I watched as a kid

        • glimse@lemmy.world
          3·
          9 days ago

          I love that he’s established enough in the niche that he gets access to film civil construction projects, too. Great stuff

    • CMLVI@lemmy.world
      7·
      9 days ago

      LEMMiNO is my favorite bi-annual creator.

      Nexpo does some really good stuff too, but I think recently he’s just been doing like Reddit deep dives, and that is only so interesting.

    • Feathercrown@lemmy.worldEnglish
      4·
      9 days ago

      It’s pretty funny that Sciencephile the AI can be recommended as a good non-AI source of info now that more capable AI is real and not just scifi.

  • snoons@lemmy.caEnglish
    16·
    9 days ago

    Not sure if these are what you’re looking for, but:

    • Dr. Becky [professional commentary on astronomy and astrophysics]

    • Anton Petrov [professional commentary on astronomy and astrophysics]

    • What’s Going On With Shipping? [videos about the ins and outs of international maritime shipping]

    • Not Just Bikes [focuses on the many ways urban infrastructure can be improved]

    • Sampson Boat Co. [~seven years worth of videos where Leo rebuilds a 1910 gaff cutter from the keel up. Currently sailing it back to London to participate in race the same boat won a century ago]

    • Primitive Technology [builds cool things with sticks, mud, water and pond scum]

    • Bad Obsession Motorsport [bought an old mini-cooper and shoved an engine from a Celica GT-Four into it]

    • Practical Engineering [a practical look at engineering projects that most people ignore, mostly because they're underground]

    • B1M [videos focusing on large mega projects like tunnels and nuclear reactors]

    • Jay and Mark [map guys that rightfully complain about Londons infrastructure]

    • Florian Gadsby [skilled (practised) potter that makes really satisfying pieces]

    There are also channels that are focused on the war in Ukraine and related international shenanigans (in order of avg. video length):

    • Perun

    • Denys Davydov

    • Reporting from Ukraine

    • Suchomimus (poor chap made a channel to nerd out about dinosaurs, then the Russians attacked…)

    Also check out ytch.xyz; It serves videos from a curated list of channels such that it behaves like cable television.

    Also also check out nebula.tv if you can afford it.

  • spectrums_coherence@piefed.socialEnglish
    15·
    9 days ago

    Veritasium

    Fren

    Johnny Harris

    Compterphile

    3blue1brown

    tldrNews (several channel each for different region)

    RealLifeLore

    Money and Macro (actual economist, not finance bro)

      • spectrums_coherence@piefed.socialEnglish
        3·
        9 days ago

        Unlike fern and tldrnews, I don’t think they declared no AI, but I feel most of there animation seems to involve a lot of human labors, at least on top of AI.

        They have also never declared the use of AI either, so I guess I don’t know for sure.

  • Captain Aggravated@sh.itjust.worksEnglish
    13·
    8 days ago

    I like:

    Technology Connections. Alec is a refrigeration cycle enthusiast from the American Midwest in a tweed jacket who talks about gadgetry. He’ll change your understanding of dishwashers.

    History For Granite. Join him to explore ancient Egypt. A no bullshit no ancient aliens channel focusing on old kingdom Egyptian monuments, particularly the pyramids of Giza and Dahshur. His hot takes include “The ascending passage of the Great Pyramid is built of lower quality limestone, possibly because the higher quality Tura limestone used for most passageways wasn’t available. As the passage ascends, you can see the work getting more consistent and gaining quality, as if the masons were gaining skill working with this inferior material.” And he casts solar eclipse quantities of shade at Zahi Hawass. It’s hilarious.

    Cathode Ray Dude. A computer and video hardware enthusiast from the Pacific Northwest. He’ll find some electronics artifact and explore its quirks and features, including a whole series on weird old laptops.

    Paul Fellows. Bri’ish astronomer type who delivers short-ish briefings on astronomical objects. “Once Around: The Large Magellanic Cloud.” I’m getting to where I prefer his content to SEA or Astrum.

    TierZoo. Animal documentaries in the style of video game commentary. Animals are player characters in a massively multiplayer game called Outside. A typical video will be titled “Are snakes OP?” and he will rank various snakes on a tier list. “Next we have the rattlesnake. Rattlesnakes have spent evolution points on the rattle ability, a mid-level intimidation and area denial attack intended to evade encounters with carnivore mains.” The fact he’s been able to keep up this shtick so long is the most entertaining part.

    • slingstone@lemmy.world
      5·
      8 days ago

      Technology Connections is the bomb. It’s the kind of content that makes you more knowledgeable in a meaningful way by the time the video is over.

  • lurker2718@lemmings.world
    12·
    8 days ago

    If you are interested in (astro)physics, here are two channels which i enjoy and can assure for their correctness on research topics:

    Dr. Becky Astrophysicist talking about what’s happening in space from planets currently visible by nakedness eye to new impactfull research papers. She explains everything in an approachable way.

    Angela Collier Theoretical physicist, makes long story telling videos about physics and societal topics surrounding research. Most videos are >50 minutes, some are more than three hours. However, they often stray from the original topic.

    For some talk about philosophy, I can recommend Philosophy Tube. Most videos are somewhat short of an hour, but explain some philosophical topic in an approachable and interesting manner. Just don’t be detered by her extraordinary costumes for each session. I think she research the philosophical questions quite well.

    • EntheoNaut@lemmy.ml
      4·
      8 days ago

      Universe Today is fantastic space news

      John Michael Godier has informative science based space and metaphysics, sci fi writer. Good stuff

      PBS SpaceTime is wonderful

      Fig Leaf wonderful history, love this woman and style

      Dark5 Ancient Mysteries

      North 02

  • dustycups@aussie.zone
    11·
    8 days ago

    No one seems to have mentioned Steve Mould.
    Super specific topics, interesting (to me anyway) and definitely no slop.
    Edit:mentionded?

  • hereiamagain@sh.itjust.works
    10·
    8 days ago

    Don’t see “Half As Interesting” listed here. His stuff doesn’t usually go super deep, but I’ve learned a lot from him.

    And just recently he was accused of using AI for a thumbnail and this was his response:

  • FinjaminPoach@lemmy.world
    8·
    9 days ago

    (This is slightly UK centric)

    Posts regularly:

    Less-often post schedule:

  • IntrovertTurtle@lemmy.zip
    91·
    9 days ago

    SmarterEveryDay is cool, it’s a former NASA engineer just explaining cool shit. I’m a fan of his ‘how do helicopters work’ deep dive, and the world’s greatest archer videos.

    Veritassium is kinda the same thing, though I don’t know his stuff quite as well.

      • IntrovertTurtle@lemmy.zip
        3·
        9 days ago

        I haven’t watched much of his new stuff, so idk anything about that. I do know a lot of his fans were semi-upset about his increase in use of the slow-mo, high-speed camera footage.

      • Oaksey@lemmy.world
        1·
        9 days ago

        I hadn’t noticed it in the videos I’ve seen. He has a good podcast “No Dumb Questions” and has a Pastor as his co-host. Typically I enjoy it but good lord, the Christmas special was bible class and painful to listen to.

    • mrgoosmoos@lemmy.caEnglish
      2·
      8 days ago

      eh, I’ve stopped watching him in the past couple years.

      between the trend of needing to go bigger to satisfy the algorithm, the religious stuff, and fellating the US military, the content just isn’t worth it

  • thermal_shock@lemmy.worldEnglish
    7·
    8 days ago

    More perfect union, according to Nicole, Zac rios

    3 of my favorites in last few months.

    Darknet diaries is the shit for podcasts. Also on YouTube.