[kenj66]

I have been reading about the "scrapers" that go out and collect information about videos and such. I think I understand - but after several days searching I can't find any posts or "scrapers" that address my needs. I want to "scrape" video websites that present news and commentary from alternative sources such as Bitchute, Dtube and Brighteon (and YouTube, as well). It seems like this should be straightforward since the content is freely available.

It would be even better if could assign selection "tiles" to not only the website but to individual channels as well such as "The Corbett Report" and Joe Rogan.

This is still rather mysterious to me and the YouTube videos about "scrapers" only discuss how to use them and tweak them, not how they work. Could someone point me to some resources I must have overlooked? -=Ken=-

[Karellen]

The scrapers are used to download additional information about your video and music collection. They work by matching the name of your video file (for video library) to the equivalent entry at the site of the Information Provider, then downloads the metadata and artwork.

What you are trying to do is outside the scope of our scrapers.

You want something similar to Google for video content only, and I don't know of such an add-on for Kodi.

[kenj66]

OK, thank for the information. Unfortunately, the Android TV interfaces cannot do this either, and the interfaces are much more difficult to program. I have looked at the scraper templates and, although I am not a programmer, they looked promising to modify for my purposes. Your reply seems to dash my hopes for such a module for Kodi. Kodi is so versatile that I am surprised no one else (in the entire world!) has built something to do this.
-=Ken=-

[PatK]

Interesting concept, might work by grabbing the URL for a specific movie review page and pulling the text, as long as the scraper is dealing with a few cooperative web sites, but further than that would be trying to replace a search engine like Google. Focus on third party scrapers, that could incorporate these functions within 'plot' and perhaps take a web link and open the default browser. Any thing is possible, but web site usage restrictions might bring unwanted focus and render a lot of hard work useless.

[kenj66]

Thanks for weighing in. I seem to be stymied here so I am looking into Peppermint OS which is able to make web links in the application menu - and of course the desktop. They support several browsers including the very configurable Chromium based Vivaldi. Marry that with Gnome style full screen tile arrangement - maybe...... I'll put it up in a VM shortly.

Anyway, perhaps this topic will inspire someone with more programming abilities to follow through on the idea.

Thanks again to all who responded here.

-=Ken=-

[PatK]

If you want to take up the challenge, the work is half done here https://forum.kodi.tv/showthread.php?tid=170965