tron
40:43Birth of The Transistor: A video history of Japan's electronic industry. (Part 1)
1.2M views • 12 years ago
RC286
First part of a four-part video history of Japan's electronics industry, covering the birth of the transistor and the rise of Japanese semiconductors. It appears to draw on NHK documentary material.
18:39The Death of Europe's Last Electronics Giant
4.5M views • 3 years ago
TechAltar
TechAltar's history of Philips, once Europe's largest tech company and a world leader in lighting, radio and physical media. It traces how the company sold off or spun out its businesses, until little remains but the licensed name.
26:49Inside a Huge PCB Factory
3.7M views • 8 years ago
Strange Parts
Strange Parts tours JLCPCB's large PCB factory in Huizhou, China, walking through the printed circuit board manufacturing process step by step. It shows the machinery, quality checks and scale behind cheap prototype boards.
Topic match · Electronics & circuit design
1:11:38Rockafire Explosion Documentary
1.2M views • 11 years ago
Rye & Cole
A 2008 documentary by Brett Whitcomb about the Rock-afire Explosion, the animatronic band built for ShowBiz Pizza Place restaurants. It follows the band's history and the fans who keep the machines and their technology running.
46:07Speedrunning 30yrs of lithography technology
1.9M views • 2 years ago
Breaking Taps
Breaking Taps tries to build semiconductor fabrication capability at home, working through decades of lithography history while chasing one-micrometer features. It documents the equipment, process steps and many setbacks along the way.
Topic match · Embedded systems & DIY electronics
1:07:51Shenzhen: The Silicon Valley of Hardware (Full Documentary) | Future Cities | WIRED
15.7M views • 10 years ago
WIRED Investigations
A WIRED Future Cities documentary on Shenzhen, covering its hardware-prototyping culture and shanzhai copycat manufacturing. It looks at how the city's ecosystem evolved and what the rest of the world can learn.
Topic match · Embedded systems & DIY electronics
31:39The Secret Life of the Radio - Remastered
359K views • 5 years ago
tim hunkin
Remastered episode of Tim Hunkin's The Secret Life of Machines about the radio, covering its development including Hertz and Marconi experiments and Armstrong's FM radio in animated form.
Topic match · Electronics & circuit design
15:51I BOUGHT A WHOLE CHURCH ORGAN - Part 1 The Organs Removal
301K views • 4 years ago
LOOK MUM NO COMPUTER
Part one of Look Mum No Computer's series on buying a whole church pipe organ, covering how it was removed from its home. The series goes on to restoring it and rewiring it for MIDI.
Topic match · Music theory, synthesis & production
31:01How I Upgraded My iPhone Memory 800% - in Shenzhen, China
7.1M views • 8 years ago
Strange Parts
Scotty Allen of Strange Parts travels through Shenzhen's Huaqiangbei markets and learns to upgrade an iPhone 6s from 16GB to 128GB by swapping its flash chip. It is part 3 of his custom iPhone series and shows the difficulty of the hands-on repair work.
Topic match · Repair, teardowns & right to repair
23:49How I Made My Own iPhone - in China
26.3M views • 9 years ago
Strange Parts
Strange Parts builds a working refurbished iPhone 6S entirely from components bought in the Huaqiangbei phone parts markets in Shenzhen. The video explains how the markets work and what the parts cost.
Topic match · Repair, teardowns & right to repair
37:50The Art of Making a Nixie Tube
6.3M views • 10 years ago
Dalibor Farný
Dalibor Farny documents the hand manufacture of a nixie tube, from glassblowing to evacuation, with text notes rather than narration. He revived the lost craft of nixie tube making.
Topic match · Electronics & circuit design
25:22The Fastest Maze-Solving Competition On Earth
25.3M views • 3 years ago
Veritasium
Veritasium visits the Micromouse competition, where small autonomous robots race to solve mazes at extreme speed. It covers the competition's technical history, including fans and ground effect enabling very high-g turns.
Topic match · Embedded systems & DIY electronics
27:09Sega Saturn CD - Cracked after 20 years
4.4M views • 10 years ago
debuglive
A look inside Dr Abrasive's lab as he engineers a flash-card replacement for the Sega Saturn optical drive after cracking its CD protection 20 years on.
Topic match · Embedded systems & DIY electronics
31:44WLW's 500,000 Watt Transmitter
646K views • 13 years ago
K7AGE
A tour of the historic WLW transmitter facility in Mason, Ohio, recorded at Hamvention 2013. It shows the surviving equipment from the 500,000 watt AM era, when WLW was the only US station at that power, and explains the history.
Topic match · Electronics & circuit design
13:37Internet of food: Arduino-based, urban aquaponics in Oakland
995K views • 14 years ago
Kirsten Dirksen
A short documentary about Eric Maundu's Arduino-controlled aquaponics setup in West Oakland, where contaminated soil rules out ordinary farming. Fish and circulating water grow plants without soil.
Topic match · Embedded systems & DIY electronics
18:09Video explains the world's most important 6-sec drum loop
7M views • 20 years ago
Landon Proctor
Nate Harrison's 2004 video history of the Amen Break, a six-second drum sample from a 1969 b-side that became the basis of hip-hop sampling, jungle and drum and bass. It is also a meditation on cultural ownership and creativity.
Topic match · Music performance & songs
41:12Trackers: The Sound of 16-Bit
2.1M views • 4 years ago
Ahoy
Ahoy's documentary traces tracker music from early Amiga software like SoundMonitor and Soundtracker through the demoscene, Protracker, and PC trackers such as Screamtracker and FastTracker. It covers the sound, culture and history of 16-bit module music.
Topic match · Music theory, synthesis & production
1:16:21Notation Must Die: The Battle For How We Read Music
1.8M views • 3 years ago
Tantacrul
Tantacrul's 76-minute deep dive into the history of western music notation and the many proposed replacements, such as piano rolls, colored notes and the jubilate. He explains why none have displaced the current system.
Topic match · Music theory, synthesis & production
29:53Pipe Organ (5-story instrument)
7.3M views • 7 years ago
Rob Scallon
Rob Scallon explores a five-story pipe organ, the largest in the Midwest, with organist John Sherer. The half-hour tour covers most of the instrument and how it works.
Topic match · Music performance & songs
46:33How We Made MuseScore 4 - Music App Design is Challenging!
814K views • 3 years ago
Tantacrul
Tantacrul walks through how the MuseScore 4 team was built and how design decisions were made for the overhaul of a huge legacy notation app. It covers playback and engraving quality improvements.
Topic match · Music theory, synthesis & production
9:57How Music Works 1 - Melody - Part 1
810K views • 18 years ago
timegrinder
The first part of a four-part Channel 4 (UK) documentary series presented by Howard Goodall, this episode covers melody and why tunes affect us so deeply. It explains how melody works in Western music with historical background and music theory.
Topic match · Music theory, synthesis & production
30:16Dan Deacon - Bromst - In The Studio
74K views • 14 years ago
Pitchfork
A Pitchfork TV documentary following Dan Deacon in Montana as he finishes his album Bromst. It shows the experimentation behind it, including pieces written for MIDI-driven player pianos.
Topic match · Music theory, synthesis & production
11:31Tractor Hacking: The Farmers Breaking Big Tech's Repair Monopoly
3.4M views • 8 years ago
Motherboard
A Motherboard documentary episode from Nebraska about farmers and mechanics fighting manufacturers like John Deere over access to the diagnostic software needed to repair modern tractors. It shows how software locks have taken away farmers' traditional self-reliance.
Topic match · Repair, teardowns & right to repair
18:37The Rogue Tesla Mechanic Resurrecting Salvaged Cars
5.2M views • 8 years ago
Motherboard
A Motherboard documentary on Rich, who buys wrecked Teslas, rebuilds them from salvaged parts and shares the process as Rich Rebuilds. It shows the obstacles to repairing cars Tesla won't service.
Topic match · Repair, teardowns & right to repair
4:56Moving Atoms: Making The World's Smallest Movie
3M views • 13 years ago
IBM
A short IBM behind-the-scenes documentary on how researchers moved individual atoms to make the world's smallest movie. It introduces the scientists and their work on atomic memory and data storage.
Topic match · Hardware (other)
4:55:46The Secret War
552K views • 12 years ago
Sergio IQ
A compilation of the 1977 BBC series The Secret War, a documentary on British scientific and technical efforts in WWII, including radar, German navigation beams and V-weapons. It features interviews with people who were there, including Albert Speer.
21:59How Semiconductors Ruined East Germany
1M views • 3 years ago
Asianometry
Asianometry examines how East Germany tried and failed to build a native semiconductor industry despite heavy investment, including the espionage involved in acquiring Western microelectronics technology.
7:07To Scale: THE SOLAR SYSTEM
16.5M views • 11 years ago
To Scale:
A short film in which friends build the first true-to-scale model of the solar system, with full planetary orbits, on a Nevada dry lakebed. It conveys the real distances and sizes involved.
1:51:13A4 / V2 Rocket in detail: Turbopump
1.8M views • 7 years ago
Astronomy and Nature TV
A very long, detailed look at the A4/V2 rocket turbopump, the steam-turbine-driven twin propellant pump system. It covers the peroxide and permanganate catalysis that drives the turbine. This is part 1 of a series on V2 components.
3:54:44The Century of the Self (Full Adam Curtis Documentary)
3.8M views • 11 years ago
David Lessig
Adam Curtis' multi-part documentary on how Freud's ideas and Edward Bernays' public relations shaped consumer culture and political control. It argues that business and government learned to manufacture desires.
2:40:29HyperNormalisation 2016
2.3M views • 10 years ago
crisalist
Adam Curtis's 2016 BBC documentary HyperNormalisation, about 160 minutes long. It cuts together roughly forty years of politics, finance and technology to argue that people have retreated into a simplified fake world.
48:42James Burke Connections, Ep. 4 "Faith in Numbers"
225K views • 7 years ago
DRS_Education
Episode 4 of James Burke's Connections series, tracing how commercialism, climate change and the Black Death shaped the move to the Renaissance. It follows threads through waterpower, the printing press, the Jacquard loom and the Hollerith punch card toward modern computing.
4:05:39The Spectacular Failure of the Star Wars Hotel
17.7M views • 2 years ago
Jenny Nicholson
Jenny Nicholson's roughly four-hour review of her two-night stay on Disney's Star Wars Galactic Starcruiser immersive hotel. She goes through the experience, its story and production, and why it failed.
1:42:01MyHouse.WAD - Inside Doom's Most Terrifying Mod
19.4M views • 3 years ago
Power Pak
A long video essay on MyHouse.wad, a Doom II mod uploaded by an anonymous user that hides unsettling secrets in its walls. It tells the story of the map, its mystery and its liminal horror.
1:40:0313TH | FULL FEATURE | Netflix
16.7M views • 6 years ago
Netflix
Ava DuVernay's Oscar-nominated documentary on how the history of racial inequality in the US, from slavery through the 13th Amendment's exception clause, drives mass incarceration. It combines archival footage with testimony from activists and scholars.
41:29Flight of the Navigator | VFXcool
3.2M views • 5 years ago
Captain Disillusion
Captain Disillusion's VFXcool episode, led by Alan Melikdjanian, takes a 41-minute nostalgic look at how the visual effects of Flight of the Navigator were made. It covers early computers, motion control, in-camera effects and practical crafts.
56:11Always/Never: The Quest for Safety, Control, and Survivability - Part 1
303K views • 11 years ago
Sandia National Labs
Part one of Sandia National Labs' first-person documentary on the use control, detonation safety and survivability of US nuclear weapons. It covers nuclear sharing in NATO and how control of use was separated from possession, leading to the always/never problem.
30:11The People's Republic of The Future
3.3M views • 7 years ago
Bloomberg Originals
Bloomberg's Hello World episode in which Ashlee Vance visits Shenzhen, a hub of electronics manufacturing and cloning. He meets tech-fueled entrepreneurs working under an authoritarian regime.
56:58The KGB, the Computer, and Me (Complete)
305K views • 15 years ago
GBPPR2
The 1990 NOVA documentary follows astronomer Clifford Stoll as he tracks a hacker through military and research computer networks, a story that involved the CIA and KGB. It is based on The Cuckoo's Egg.
17:49Shenzhen: A New Breed of Intellectual Property (Part 3) | Future Cities | WIRED
172K views • 10 years ago
Uncanny Valley by WIRED
Part 3 of WIRED's Future Cities series on Shenzhen. It examines how attitudes toward patents and intellectual property differ from the West, and how shanzhai (copycat) manufacturing created an ecosystem of rapid iteration and distribution.