Audio and Video Resources

Research done at EdX finds 6 minutes to be the optimal video length for students, as described in this series of blog posts: Optimal Video Length for Student Engagement.

Penn State Resources:

Top Free Media Resources

  • Youtube contains a large variety of videos including movies, music, news, and numerous channels.
  • Vimeo is similar to Youtube in that you can join for free to share your videos or to watch videos uploaded by users.
  • "The Science360 Video Library immerses visitors in the latest wonders of science, engineering, technology and math. We gather the latest science videos provided by scientists, colleges and universities, science and engineering centers, the National Science Foundation and more. Each video is embeddable to put on your own personal websites, blogs and social networking pages." Some of the images and multimedia might be subject to copyright.
  • Jamendo offers free streaming and download of music published under Creative Commons licenses. On Jamendo, artists grant use of their music for private uses free of cost.
  • Freesound is a collaborative database of Creative Commons Licensed sounds. Browse, download and share sounds.With Creative Commons License.
  • Ted Talks
  • Veritasium is a channel of science and engineering videos featuring experiments, expert interviews, cool demos, and discussions with the public about everything science.
  • VSauce is a channel that feature videos on scientific, psychological, mathematical, and philosophical topics, as well as gaming, technology, culture, and other general interest subjects. 

Additional Movie and Video Resources

  • The Internet Archive Movie Collection contains a collection of ephemeral films. "This library contains digital movies uploaded by Archive users which range from classic full-length films, to daily alternative news broadcasts, to cartoons and concerts. Many of these videos are available for free download."
  • The Internet Archive TV News now includes video for "every morsel of news produced since 2009 by 20 different channels, encompassing more than 1,000 news series that have generated more than 350,000 separate programs devoted to news."
  • The Public Domain project makes 1,000s of free historic media files available for you to use.
  • The National Academy YouTube channel includes videos on engineering, biology, climate change, and general sciences that are free to download, caption, and stream.
  • National Geographic Creative is a fee-based collection of images and video clips from the National Geographic.
  • istockphoto is a collection of fee-based royalty-free images, illustrations, videos, and music clips.

Additional Music and Audio Resources

  • The Mutopia Project offers sheet music editions of classical music for free download. These are based on editions in the public domain, and include works by Bach, Beethoven, Chopin, Handel, Mozart, and many others. Public Domain or Some Rights Reserved.
  • ccMixter is a community music site featuring remixes licensed under Creative Commons where you can listen to, sample, mash-up, or interact with music in whatever way you want.
  • The Free Music Archive (FMA) is an interactive library of high-quality, legal audio downloads. The Free Music Archive is directed by WFMU, the most renowned freeform radio station in America.
  • Creative Commons Audio is a website you can use to check the copyright license to be sure the music is OK to use in your project!
  • Singing Science Records is a collection of MP3 recordings from a six-LP set of science-themed folk songs that were produced in the late 1950s / early 1960s by Hy Zaret and Lou Singer.