They are entirely different. Search gets you URLs Universal Resource Locators and scrapers get you data.
Actually, I found some of the information I was looking for concerning the various forks and independent addons at https://www.reddit.com/r/Kodi_Helpers/comments/uma3yn/extensive_media_scrapers/.
Sorry, Miki, I must be an idiot, but I still don’t understand. I am clearly missing something really basic. Say you use search or a category (like Popular) to find, for example, Film A. This gives you the URL for the film. Is this different from the information for the hoster/server? Then the scraper links to/downloads the data for Film A from the hoster/server. If it doesn’t use the URL provided by the search to find the data, and the two processes are entirely different, how does the scraper know what data to link to? Can a scraper download data from URLs that haven’t been found by Search/etc.? Can Search find Film A when there are no hosters/servers to link to for it?
Thanks for putting up with my ignorance.
look up web scraping vs. webcrawling and you will get ton’s of info regarding the differences.
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When you search, it is basically searching a database for an instance of a show or movie. Like if you went to Trakt or IMDB, etc. I don’t know exactly what database Kodi add-ons use to pull that information, maybe we have some developers or something in here that could break this process down even farther. When you find an instance of Movie A, scrapers will search for sources to be able to stream it for you.
The streaming process is similar to Plex. Say you want to find Movie B this time. You sit down and text all of your friends that have Plex servers to see who has that movie (legally purchased) and on their Plex server, and have the person who does have it send you a share so you can watch it on your network. In this off-the wall streaming example/scenario for the sake of “layman’s terms and thoughts” you would be like the scrapers. Except they don’t have to text friends, they just need to find hosts that are capable of connecting with your network and streaming the content over the internet.
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Except that the first source collected by RD might be 45GB whereas one further down will be less than a gig. Seriously! How in heaven’s name can both be 1080p yet there be such a discrepancy between the size of the source??!!
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You will need to change your skin to ‘Estuary’ in order to carry out the instructions above by Troy.
After it is installed, you can reset skin back as it was previous or pick another if you choose.
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If you have a Kodi build why do you need an add on?
Because the Addon he wants is probably not in the Build. I do it from time to time especially if I see a new Addon I might want to test out I’ll just add it to my current Build