Curiosity Stream is a streaming service for those of us that enjoy learning through documentary videos. I have had the service for a while now so I figured I would tell you about it and give my impressions.
A Relative Bargain?
First, Curiosity Stram is a relative bargain in the streaming world, as long as you are the right audience. It is about $40 a year. Obviously I’d like to see Amazon Prime add it to their included offerings, but that’s not too bad. I just pay it once a year and forget about it. As long as I watch one or two videos a week I figure it is worth it.
For Those That Like Documentaries
As I’ve mentioned, to enjoy Curiosity Stream you have to like documentaries. If you are the kind of person whose eyes roll up if somebody puts on a nature show or the History Channel it might not be for you. Although you might consider broadening your horizons and who knows, you might be surprised!
It is possible you might find some of the same titles elsewhere in the streaming world. However for the most part I haven’t found that to be the case
Examples of Content
When you go to the website you find a few highlights and then the videos are broken down into sections. At the time of this writing these included:
Nature and Environment
Ancient History and Dinos
Breakthroughs and Science Stories
Ocean Adventures
Space and Tech
Biographies
Money Matters
Music, movies and Pop Culture
Unsolved Mysteries
Food, Adventure, and Travel
Kids and Family
A few others
The Lake at the Bottom of the World
As a first example, for the last two days I have been watching a video called “The Lake at the Bottom of World. The video is an hour and 31 minutes long. It is about a group of scientists who are working at exploring a freshwater lake buried far below the Antarctic ice sheet. It was found by bouncing lasers from space off the ice. They are drilling through the ice down to the lake in an attempt to find life or other discoveries.
Here are a couple more examples:
Rome, The World’s First Superpower
I enjoy reading or watching videos about ancient Rome. (I actually just finished a book about the emperor Hadrian – I should do a review on that soon.) Rome, The World’s First Superpower is a four part series, with each episode running about ¾ of an hour. The episodes included the following:
City and Blood – About the early empire.
Total War – About the wars that allowed the empire to expand.
Death of a Hero – Concerns Pompeii and how Rome acquired great wealth
Caesar – Used Caesar’s own memoirs to review his rise the power
I thoroughly enjoyed this series.
Battle of Jutland
Like many guys I like reading and watching videos about great historical battles. Jutland was a huge naval battle during World War 1. It was a battle between early battleships of Great Britain and Germany. It goes on to review the cause of the loss of some British battlewagons. This one was about an hour and being a history buff I liked it!
So, if you are the kind of person who enjoys the occasional documentary rather than some sitcom, you might want to give Curiosity Stream a look.
