There are several different ways of searching and browsing videos on PeerTube, each with its own advantages and disadvantages.
Sepia Search
Sepia Search is the official PeerTube search engine run by the developers of the PeerTube server software. It tries to index all public videos from as many PeerTube servers as possible, but will remove problematic servers when noticed or reported.
Sepia Search has the widest range of search results, but also the greatest risk of seeing unsuitable or problematic content. You can use it at SepiaSearch.org ⧉ and see a list of the servers it indexes at instances.JoinPeerTube.org ⧉.
If you see an unsuitable video in the Sepia Search index, the first step is to try to report it to the server’s owners via their PeerTube website. If that doesn’t work or if the entire server is problematic, you can ask Sepia Search to remove the server from their index by going to instances.JoinPeerTube.org ⧉ and emailing the address at the Report an instance link in the top right corner of the page.
Sepia Search runs on free open source software ⧉, and people with the required technical knowledge are free to create their own alternative index using their own list of servers ⧉.
Fedi.Video
Fedi.Video is an attempt to create a safer higher-quality human-curated alternative to Sepia Search. Every account listed on Fedi.Video has been manually checked before it is included in the index.
You can search and browse Fedi.Video on its website ⧉. You can search using the search box at the top, you can browse lots of human-curated playlists on particular topics below the search box, or browse the latest videos and trending videos below the playlists.
Fedi.Video has a much narrower range of search results compared to Sepia Search, but because it’s human-curated it’s also a lot safer and higher quality.
Search box on PeerTube servers
Each PeerTube server has a search box at the top, but these are not all the same. Each server’s admin decides what kind of results show up for searches
Some admins opt to just search channels that the server federates. Others have connected it to Sepia Search to give a wider range of results. Meanwhile some servers just show results for videos on that server.
If you’re unsure about what an admin has chosen for their server, you can contact them via the server’s “More Info” page on its website.
Search box on Mastodon servers
Because PeerTube is part of the Fediverse, its accounts and videos will often show up in searches on Mastodon etc servers. For example if you search for “Blender” on your Mastodon server you may well see the official Blender PeerTube account in the results. Mastodon search boxes show all the results for all the accounts and posts that that Mastodon server has noticed.
However, there is no way to split Mastodon search results by server type, so there’s no way to split the PeerTube results from the Mastodon etc results. You will see PeerTube accounts and videos mixed in with Mastodon etc accounts and posts. (PeerTube videos look like Mastodon posts when viewed within Mastodon.)
Making your own PeerTube search engine (if you are techy)
All of the software used in Sepia Search is free and and open source. If you are a very techy person who likes to host their own online services, you can make your own alternative to Sepia Search using your own list of servers.
The source code for the search engine is here ⧉ and the source code for the server list is here ⧉.