Record from Kodi with Pilfer

[NapoleonWils0n]

Kodi is a media center that use's a file called the playercorefactory.xml to define external video and audio players

Using the playercorefactory.xml we can define a new player that runs a python 3 script i wrote called pilfer to record videos and audio from within Kodi or on the command line

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uKRU74Uqj1s&list=PL7hhhG5qUoXmtylBpTV4AdjFkYOj2soEB

The pilfer script takes the link from Kodi looks for the url, user-agent, referer and cookies,
then creates an ffmpeg command to record the audio or video stream from any kodi addon

Kodi use its own format for links that contain user-agent, referer and cookies which cant be directly recorded with ffmpeg
you have to extract the various parts of the url to use with ffmpeg, pilfer automates that process

The script works on linux,mac,unix and windows

After installing the pilfer script you install the playercorefactory.xml file to your ~/.kodi/userdata directory on linux, or appropriate path on other operating systems
then in kodi you press c on the keyboard on any video or audio link in an addon and choose Play with ...

This opens a menu where you can choose from the following options

play - uses pilfer to create a url that mpv can play and opens mpv as an external video player
record video - record without specifying a duration
record video 1 hour
record video 2 hours
record video 3 hours
save url
record audio - record without specifying a duration
record audio 1 hour
record audio 2 hours
record audio 3 hours

You can also save the url from kodi and record on the command line

to display the script help run

pilfer -h

which outputs the followng

-h --help display help
-i 'url' or text file - record video
-a 'url' or text file - record audio
-t '00:00:00'

pilfer -i/-a -t <00:00:00>

Its also possible to schedule recordings by using the at command on linux to record a link at a certain time of the day and specify a duration for the recording

I wrote Pilfer about 5 years ago and it still works with the latest version of Kodi,
i havent updated it in 3 years because if it aint broke dont fix it and the structure of the kodi urls hasnt changed in that time

The original version of the script was called kodi-playercorefactory and was written in bash about 6 years ago

[sumit]

I am trying to run this on macOS. I followed the instructions exactly as on the github macOS setuppage. Kodi crashes as soon as I hit "save url". No url is saved on the destkop and I dont get that external player active popup. What could I be doing wrong?

I am using Python 3.7, Kodi 20.2.

Any help would be appreciated.

I also tried this on a windows OS. I got the same error. No video URL was saved. I dont get that external player active popup on there too.

[sumit]

OkI got it to work. The fault lies in the mpv player that was crashing. I just used the contextual menu before playing the stream to save the url and record. Amazing work! I am surprised no one even left a thanks to you here! A heart full thanks to you!! Keep up the good work!

[Davide27]

Ok I got it to work. The fault lies in the mpv player that was crashing. I just used the contextual menu before playing the stream to save the url and record. Amazing work! I am surprised no one even left a thanks to you here! A heart full thanks to you!! Keep up the good work!

Hi Sumit
I am trying to get Pilfer 4.0 64bit for Windows to work with Kodi 20.5 on Windows 11 and I have the same problem as you posted.

Could you tell me how you solved the problem?
Thanks

Pilfer 4.0 64bit installs Python 3.6 on the system.