My plugin for TV Shows and Movies for KODI

If you are looking for a plugin to watch movies and series with through KODI, then Scrapee is for you.

You may remember few years ago what we had to do to watch a movie or an episode of our favorite TV show.

We struggled with finding subtitles, syncing them, making sure the file you downloaded is the right one etc. When streaming services like Netflix came into play, it became too simple to watch something, you just pressed the button on the remote control, you chose what you wanted to watch and you watched it, simply as that. There is no need to search for sources and subtitles anymore, while the convenience they provide, such as saving something to your favorites, continuing from where you left off, etc., made us to leave the "pirate" scene for good.

Lately, however, these services are suffering from the w0ke virus, while their quality is getting worse every year. And although I used to pay a subscription to some of them, I have now stopped and I don't want to pay for anything, simply because their stuff is trash.

Because like I said today's stuff isn't worth a dime, if now there is something I want to see, I'd go to some of the well-known websites that have movies and series online for free and I watch it. But I don't like to watch anything on my PC, so I needed something for my TV.

I decided to check what is available on KODI. One solution was to use some plugins that are out there. However, some of the plugins I tried didn't work and they also had issues with the subtitles, that is, because they were searching based on the title, they might show subtitles from something else related and not what you wanted, while many of the pages they used to scrape, they were lost so there were no sources for what you wanted to see, so you ended up watching something else that still had some sources.

So, I decided to write my own plugin, mainly because I'm want to improve my skills on Python programming language. First of all, I wrote this particular plugin for KODI for myself, later I gave it to some friends and because they liked it and it worked quite well, I decided to fix some bugs and upload it to the internet for anyone who is interested.

Now, for those who don't know, KODI is a media player that can run almost anywhere, on mobiles, PCs, tablets, etc. Also, several TV Box/Media Players have it installed, so there is a possibility to have it already installed. Also, you can buy a Raspberry PI and install the LibreELEC distribution to get a fast and cheap media player. I have this solution with the Raspberry PI and it is convenient for me, because I can control it with the TV remote control.

Disclaimer

First let me tell you that the plugin does not link to any pirated pages. In fact, it links to only 2 pages and nowhere else. On my site where it gets the information about the movies and series, such as titles, photos, actors, etc. and on coverapi.store where it gets the link for the material you want to see.

And something important, which I also have to emphasize, the material that the plugin shows I am NOT uploading it and I have NO connection with the site "coverapi.store". The plugin is a simple scraper and nothing else. It does not provide any link, neither my site. So don't ask me about new movies, bad subtitle sync, bad picture quality, if a movie won't play, etc. I have nothing to do with the material and I don't upload it.

Also, my site runs automatically, which means that there may be errors in the list of movies and series, which I will correct in the future if there are such issues. The plugin provides TV Shows and movies with Greek subtitles.

Scrapee

Let's see how to install the plugin now and what you can do more. This guide was done on a Windows PC and a fresh KODI installation , but it's no different on any device. First download KODI on the system of your choice and then download the plugin. Save the plugin in zip format in a folder that doesn't need a long path to find, for example in the downloads folder.

After installing KODI, run it and go to My Addons section and from there install from zip file. It will ask you to confirm that you want to install third-party plugins and you should select yes.

Now again select install from zip file and now you can install the plugin. When the installation is finished, you can start watching movies and series without having to do anything else.

When you watch a movie or a TV show, the plugins saves it to your history, where you can find easily for something you watched. It is also possible to continue a movie or an episode from where you left it, while you can like or add something to your favorites. Likes and views are sent to my site, so the list of top views and top favorites changes every time, depending on what the most people are seeing. Some other lists, eg the most voted ones for example, are provided based on The Movie Database (TMDB) and are not affected by the plugin views. I may remove them in the future and there will be exclusive lists based on top views and likes only from the plugin, if there is interest.

To take it a step further, I also added the ability to sync between devices. With synchronization active, if you watch a movie on mobile, you can continue it at home for example. To do this, you should go to the page I have created for this purpose and sing up for a free account.

At the moment you can't do more than sign up and get a unique key. You can also put a fake email to sign up if you want, but you should know that if you forgot your password, you will not be able to find it again and you will lose your data, because as I said, the site runs automatically and I do not access its database. Note, my site only provides information from The Movie Database (TMDB) and nothing else.

You will get a key after your registration and you have to put it in the plugin in the corresponding field in the settings. When you put it on for the first time, it will sync your data, if any. So you will have to wait until the process finishes, which is less than 20 seconds.

I should also say that every time you run KODI, you will also see a message that it is syncing your data and is something that can take up to a minute to finish, depending on your internet speed and the system KODI is running on, so I chose to do this every time KODI starts and nowhere else, to avoid any delays.

Beta

The plugin is in beta form. This means it may have bugs or issues that I didn't catch when I was testing it. You can write to me in the comments about any problems so that I can fix them, as well as ideas for improving its operation.

Maybe in the future I will add more options or fix some bugs. For example, movie or series titles that are in Chinese/Korean, it doesn't display them correctly, although it displays other languages correctly (eg Arabic). Ok, not a serious problem and I think I will solve it soon. I'm also thinking that the site should be upgraded and provide information about the movies, so that you can add your favorite movies from there, or create a watch later style list, or add the ability to find titles based on some tags, for example "movies with zombies", "disaster movies" etc. If there is a demand for it, I might do it.

Upgrades

At the moment there is no automatic update of new versions, so if there is a new version, the system will notify you when starting KODI, but the upgrade will have to be done manually, which means it can be done in the same way that the installation was done, i.e. you will download the zip file from github again and repeat the process. KODI will see that it is a new version and upgrade it automatically. In the future I might make the whole process automatic.