Amazon US Scraper not working

Trenton_net Wrote:Hi Everyone,

Was trying to use the above fix that was posted for XBMC for Ubuntu (The version released for Lucid) and it seems I still can't scrape anything from Amazon US. Does anyone know how to fix this, or what the problem might be? Did they change the formatting again?

UPDATE:

If I use the scraper files from this link it seems to work slightly better:

http://homepage.mac.com/jelockwood/scrapers.html

When I use those scraper files, I get results back but only very little and with simple keywords. For example, if I want to find the movie "Anna in Kung Fu Land", Amazon.com shows it just fine. In XBMC, nothing shows up. If I type in just "Kung Fu" I get a few hits like "Kung Fu: The Legend Continues", etc, but not "Anna in Kung Fu Land".

Same thing happens with movies like "Butterfly and Sword". in Amazon.com the movie shows up fine. In XBMC, nothing shows up, and if I use the simpler terms like "Butterfly" or "sword" I get a few related hits like "The Butterfly Effect" and such, but no exact hit for "Butterfly and Sword"

Perhaps if someone who has the Amazon.com scraper working and experience with scraper development could try those search terms and see what's wrong with them? Or perhaps I'm not using the latest version of the Amazon.com scraper?

The version included with XBMC 9.11 is way out of date. Amazon also keep changing their html and unfortunately breaking these scrapers. I am currently quite busy myself but now I know there are issues I will try and get round to having a look and updating it (again). Either keep watching this thread, or PM me to see how things are going in a few days.

Could you please help me to understand what amazon.com gives over imdb.com?

I've found all these movie in IMDb. Is there anything special which only available on amazon.com and not IMDb?

I just try to understand to usecase.

olympia Wrote:Could you please help me to understand what amazon.com gives over imdb.com?

I've found all these movie in IMDb. Is there anything special which only available on amazon.com and not IMDb?

I just try to understand to usecase.

Ah, well Amazon.com tends to have more complete information since it's a commercial website. That is, for international titles which are more obscure, they tend to document the item faster and more accurately with their own product scans and information.

For Chinese/HK movies (which is my usecase), you'll usually find cover art and information as the title brakes for international release almost immediately. Other scrapers like IMDb will usually have information as well, but that's (I think) all user submitted and there is no financial motivation for them to get cover art, movie information, etc, unless someone submits them.

olympia Wrote:Could you please help me to understand what amazon.com gives over imdb.com?

I've found all these movie in IMDb. Is there anything special which only available on amazon.com and not IMDb?

I just try to understand to usecase.

For movies etc. IMDB is indeed normally the best choice, however Amazon is a better choice for non-movie titles, e.g. DVDs of live performance Comedy shows, music concerts, documentaries, some Children's stuff, and some other esoteric DVDs. A lot of these would not count as TV shows so TheTVDB.com does not help either.

I did not get a chance to work on it this weekend, but I will try to do so soon.

I fixed the scraper for amazon.com, but the quality of images are crap and the amount of available information is extremely low.

Still not sure why anyone would like to use this.

Could you please test and confirm if this is what you wanted?

olympia Wrote:I fixed the scraper for amazon.com, but the quality of images are crap and the amount of available information is extremely low.

Still not sure why anyone would like to use this.

Could you please test and confirm if this is what you wanted?

Where does one download your updated version? And yes, I would still find this scraper useful for as mentioned non-film DVDs.

you have to use a dharma build. and it will be delivered straight to your htpc from the repo.

Has there been an updated working Amazon scrapped somewhere available for download?