Software » Media Center » Kodi 21.0

Kodi 21.0 "Omega" - Release
Release
Team Kodi
April 06, 2024

It's time! We are very pleased to present the latest and greatest release of Kodi, v21.0 "Omega".

With this release we have seen over 3,750 commits since v20.0 "Nexus" was available to the world on January 15th, 2023. As always, this has been a huge effort from many contributors, testers and supporters. Thanks go out to our team members, plus everyone in our community who sent in a pull request, tested and gave feedback, or provided support to users on the forum. We always appreciate your contribution to making Kodi better.

Let's review some of the changes you can expect:

Major Features
FFmpeg 6

Kodi relies significantly on FFmpeg to do a lot of heavy lifting for us. Many developers have contributed to upgrading the project to make use of the newer FFmpeg releases over the past 15 months, initially starting with targeting FFmpeg 5, but later updating to FFmpeg 6. We are always greatly appreciative of the work of all of the Open Source software projects that we rely on to bring you Kodi.

DolbyVision On-the-Fly Profile Conversion

For our Android users, a fantastic contribution from quietvoid allows users to convert some less well-supported DV profile types to more well-supported profiles.

macOS Now Uses "Native" Windowing

Another change that has been years in the making. This was started by some amazing developers many years ago, and we have now been able to finally remove the last remnants of SDL library usage in Kodi. We now use native implementations for window displays on the Apple macOS platform.

A New Platform: webOS

A new platform can now run Kodi natively: a port to LG webOS TVs has been worked out by some amazing developers who have reverse engineered huge amounts of the webOS media pipelines. One of our newest team members, sundermann, has helped shepherd our newest supported platform, to extend the reach of Kodi to even more devices.

In-game Player Viewer

Controller configuration for games gets a little better in v21: a window has been added in-game to view which game port each player's controller is currently connected to.

Behind the Scenes

A large majority of changes are "under the hood" and invisible to users but improve the stability, performance, and safety of Kodi: API changes have been made to evolve Python and binary add-ons and bring new skinning features; there are updates to Kodi dependencies on most if not all Kodi platforms; fixes from regular use of code static-analysis tools, database migration fixes for a smoother update ... and lots more.

There are too many individual changes to detail everything. If you would like to know more, please look back through the Omega Alpha to RC2 release announcements and review the GitHub changelog here.

Time doesn't stand still, and we have already branched Kodi v22 "P*" for development. Thank you again for your continued support as we continue to make Kodi great!


Kodi 20.5 "Nexus" - Release
Release
Team Kodi
March 03, 2024

Nexus just won't end, it seems: we're back already, this time what we hope will be the final release for the Nexus line. Welcome to 20.5!

An assortment of bug fixes, some backports, no real new features. Full changelog since 20.4 on Github, as usual.

Release notes
Input

Reverted a number of controller changes that caused massive failures on Android devices. Input handling will now be the same as what was available in 20.3.
Platform Specific

Android

Some great detective work was done by @spdfrk for a fix that meant Kodi would close the app during potential colour mode changes.
A backport by @fritsch that intends to bring Nexus inline with Omega behaviour for AudioTrack on Android. This means that some device users will need to add an extra setting to their AdvancedSettings.xml file. Details can be seen at https://github.com/xbmc/xbmc/pull/24729.
Linux

Branding colours have been added to the metainfo file so that they can be used by things like the Flathub store. Info about this can be seen at the Flathub blog post https://docs.flathub.org/blog/introducing-app-brand-colors/.
iOS/tvOS

A change that wasn't actually in Kodi's codebase, but a fix nonetheless, means that the inputstream.ffmpegdirect addon is now available to the iOS/tvOS release debs.
... plus, of course, some behind-the-scenes fixes and updates for e.g. library versions.

Thanks, as always, to everyone who has helped us track down and fix any issues. We endeavour to minimise the issues everyone experiences, but with such a large project, and the fact everyone contributing to Kodi is a volunteer, issues and bugs are a part of life. if you happen to experience any bugs/issues, don't hesitate to reach out on the forums, or raise an issue on Github.

As this is a point release, there are no major changes since the previous version, and you should be fine to install this straight over the top of any existing Kodi 20.x installation - indeed, this will happen automatically on many platforms. However, as for all software installations, back up your userdata beforehand if you've any doubts or have anything you can't afford to lose (and definitely do this if you're going for a major version upgrade).

A list of all changes for this version can be found at GitHub. If you want to read back on the full history of v20 itself, or of previous versions, you can find the corresponding articles in the relevant blog posts.

Application deployment on different platforms (notably the Microsoft Store) can vary considerably due to circumstances outside of our control, so just be patient, and the update will inevitably find its way through.

https://github.com/xbmc/xbmc/milestone/165?closed=1


Kodi 20.4 "Nexus" - Release
Release
Team Kodi
February 11, 2024

It looks like one last hurrah was premature for the "Nexus" line: we find ourselves back again already, this time with a new 20.4 release.

An assortment of bug fixes, some backports, no real new features. Full changelog since 20.3 on Github, as usual.

Release notes
Build

A backport aimed at fixing the failure rate of binary addon builds has been merged by @garbear.
Input

Update to the controller addons.
Platform Specific

Android

Several fixes have been backported from master to fix deployment issues on Google Play. Thanks to @joseluismarti for working with us on these.
A number of fixes backported to resolve input issues (remotes/controllers).
iOS/tvOS

A long-time-coming fix to reduce black screen playback when interlaced content is played on iOS/tvOS. Users should no longer have to specifically disable VTB Hardware playback for most interlaced content. Please keep in mind some methods of content playback (HTTP URLs provided in .strm files) will still be affected.
A memory leak with game controllers on iOS/tvOS has been fixed by @kambala-decapitator.
tvOS

@kambala-decapitator fixed what seems to be a long standing bug regarding framework plist metadata for shared library frameworks.
Windows

A fix for AESinkWASAPI to improve fallback when the exact output channel layout isn't supported by drivers or hardware.

https://github.com/xbmc/xbmc/milestone/163?closed=1


Kodi 20.3 "Nexus" - Release
Release
Team Kodi
January 10, 2024

A new year dawns, and brings with it one last hurrah for the Kodi "Nexus" release line.

An assortment of bug fixes, some backports, no real new features. Full changelog since 20.2 on Github, as usual.

Release notes
Estuary

An assortment of fixes for Estuary, including home categories' focus position, alignment of counter labels and Shift view for collections.
Fixes to the weather layout when busy.
Game/Retroplayer

Fixed controllers not assigned to game ports correctly on Android.
Fixed blue/pink washed out colours on Windows with 10-bit displays.
Fixed possible crash in Port dialogue box.
Fixed typo for the mouse middle button in Controller dialogue box.
General

A DVD playback fix that resolves unmounted drives not being playable.
A fix for infinite loops in CPluginFile that occurred when using scrapers.
A fix for a crash that occurred due to Addon settings being destructed in an incorrect order.
Redact some information from Toast notifications (user/passwords incorrectly being shown).
A memory leak in context menus was resolved.
Image cache handling was fixed to correctly regenerate when cached files for JSON API consumers.
Music

Music Library: now able to automatically recover if library cleaning was interrupted previously for some reason.
Platform Specific

Android

Fixed (workaround implemented) possible audio out-of-sync in recent AMLogic BSP devices: FireTV Cube 3rd Gen, Homatics Box R 4K Plus, …
Linux

VP9 Profile 2 playback failure was fixed.
A fix for a leak of EGLFences in the DRM Prime renderer.
macOS/iOS

Fix a crash on Apple Silicon based Macs when pressing the Caps Lock key.
tvOS

Fixed: Not persistent binary addons (PVR) settings.
Windows

Fixed: 24 Hz refresh rate related to HDR in specific use cases only (when Windows HDR auto-switch is not used).
Fixed: audio device "WASAPI:default" was listed multiple times in audio device list.
Fixed: fractional refresh rates 119.88 Hz and higher they were not displayed correctly.
Pictures

An exif parsing regression from v19 was resolved.
PVR

Fix TV channel subtitles not displayed on playback start, even when activated in subtitle settings.
Fix recordings with a path containing a colon (':') not being displayed in recordings window.
UPNP

A fix for a crash that occurred when a user added a UPNP source without having UPNP enabled.
Playback from remote sources (ftp, http, etc.) has been fixed.
Video

A fix to the default Select action on certain movie-related windows.
Thanks, as always, to everyone who has helped us track down and fix any issues. We endeavour to minimise the issues everyone experiences, but with such a large project, and the fact everyone contributing to Kodi is a volunteer, issues and bugs are a part of life. if you happen to experience any bugs/issues, don't hesitate to reach out on the forums, or raise an issue on Github.

As this is a point release, there are no major changes since the previous version, and you should be fine to install this straight over the top of any existing Kodi 20.x installation - indeed, this will happen automatically on many platforms. However, as for all software installations, back up your userdata beforehand if you've any doubts or have anything you can't afford to lose (and definitely do this if you're going for a major version upgrade).

A list of all changes for this version can be found at GitHub. If you want to read back on the full history of v20 itself, or of previous versions, you can find the corresponding articles in the relevant blog posts.

Application deployment on different platforms (notably the Microsoft Store) can vary considerably due to circumstances outside of our control, so just be patient, and the update will inevitably find its way through.

Android Deployment

We always do what's known as a "staged" deployment roll out for Android. So if you don't receive the update immediately, be patient, as it will come through over the next week.


Kodi 20.2 "Nexus" - Release
Release
Team Kodi
July 02, 2023

As is always inevitable in software, we are back with a new release of Kodi "Nexus".

An assortment of bug fixes, some backports, no real new features. Full changelog since 20.1 on Github, as usual.

Release notes
Audio

An assortment of E-AC3 related fixes were backported.
Estuary

A fix to the Music Viz screen has been made by @enen92 in an endeavour to chase that elusive target of perfection
Fixes to the seekbar timer when seeking.
Game/Retroplayer

A fix to a crash by memory exhaustion when some emulators are used.
General

A whole assortment of fixes were made to fix building Kodi with GCC13.
Platform Specific

Android

A fix for a crash that occurred when >100 jobs where scheduled for the Android TV recommendation channels.
For some old Android devices that had both MediaTek and Google decoders for some media, a preference to using the Google decoder was put in as the MediaTek decoders fail to play back audio in encrypted streams.
Linux

A PR was reverted that fixes some Linux setups to use the more generic library (GL) rather than the specific GLX library.
macOS/iOS

Fix speech recognition not working (https://github.com/xbmc/xbmc/pull/23341).
Windows

Fixes to HDR playback when windows was already in HDR mode.
A backported fix for a potential deadlock for Xbox users when using pixel shaders and SW decoding.
PVR

Fix crash on saved search (https://github.com/xbmc/xbmc/pull/23195).
Fix last opened group not always restored on Kodi startup (https://github.com/xbmc/xbmc/pull/23165).
Python

@garbear has backported a fix for setting Picture and Game info via infotags.
GameInfo has been added to the Player class to allow get/set GameInfoTag data.
A fix was backported that mainly affected Linux platforms: the path used when searching for modules was appending Kodi script paths at the end of the list, and therefore could potentially find system Python scripts/modules instead of Kodi-specific scripts/modules
Video

Fix watched/unwatched status not taken into account for items not added to video library when creating playlists (https://github.com/xbmc/xbmc/pull/23398).
Fix missing watched/unwatched status in Playlist window (https://github.com/xbmc/xbmc/pull/23013).


Kodi 20.1 "Nexus" - Release
Release
Team Kodi
March 13, 2023

As is always inevitable in software, we are back with a new release of Kodi 20.x "Nexus".

An assortment of bug fixes, some backports, no real new features. Full changelog since 20.0 on Github, as usual.

Release notes
Audio

@fritsch has been working feverishly on Android-related audio issues over the past couple of months, and in combination with @thexai has introduced an algorithm to look to overcome some audio issues particularly aimed at Android devices. A summary is:

Algorithm runs for 30 seconds to learn what is going on: during this time no corrections are done, but the internal m_disconAdjustTimeMs is updated to a new value whenever when the sync error is found to increase. After 30 seconds the learning stops and the final m_disconAdjustTimeMs is set as: m_disconAdjustTimeMs * 1.15 + 5.0.

With firmware specialities for AudioTrack Write behaviour now kind of "well known" the systematic issue can be worked around easily. This helps users on affected system to not have to create an advancedsettings.xml for a manual fix.

DVD

Playback of DVD folder structures over network sources (e.g. SMB/NFS/HTTP, etc.) has been fixed.
Filesystems

A fix in Samba was made that "corrected" a long-standing assumption - it turns out that documentation doesn't always match code implementation. We now handle both the old Samba implementation and the new "correct" implementation.
Further improvements to the new NFS4 implementation have been made by @thexai . This fixes stalls/errors and brings some performance improvements to our NFS implementation.
Game/Retroplayer

Assorted fixes to the new Savestate Manager to improve usability. Thanks to @KOPRajs for reporting, and also providing the PR to fix the issues found.

An assortment of OSD improvements by @garbear resolving further issues reported by @KOPRajs.

A number of performance improvements (memory reads, faster dialogs/savestates).

Input fixes have been made that allow resetting multitap controller inputs, as well as fixing an issue around "ignored" input buttons not being saved.

Sync of some of the common controller types has been made

game.controller.default
game.controller.keyboard
game.controller.mouse
game.controller.snes
General

Fixes various overflows when using new chrono infrastructure. This fixes "keep audio device alive" when passthrough is used with an AVR.

A number of fixes by @ksooo that aim to fix regressions regarding context menu items/behaviour.

A fix for an issue on 32-bit systems that affected the sorting of items. Thanks @vpeter4.

Fixes regarding the rework of the Favourites window have been addressed. This returns behaviour found in v19 for the following:

Support actions up/down plus key mapping for u and d keys.
Support action delete plus key mapping for delete key.
Change keymaps to open the Favourites Browser window instead of the Favourites dialog as currently.
A fix by a returning team member (@CrystalP) that resolves crashes due to Unicode characters.

Platform Specific

Android

Fix packaging regression that affected some parts of the Python PyCryptodome module.
Windows

A fix was made to address an issue where some less-than-usual dimension videos were causing AMD systems to fallback to software decoding instead of using DXVA.
A packaging issues on Windows platforms meant that Chorus was unable to be used. A fix was found by @CrystalP, so users wanting to access Chorus from a Windows host can now rejoice.
PVR

A fix to resolve PVR Channel Groups to correctly show channels ordered as provided by a PVR backend.
Python

A bump of cPython to 3.11.2 was made to fix an upstream issue with the ElementTree binary module. This fixes crashes on Android when an installed addon uses the common ElementTree Python module.
Subtitles

A regression was fixed regarding Right to Left language subtitles placing punctuation incorrectly. It turns out that @CastagnaIT's implementation was too correct, and an informal standard adopted by subtitle creators to place punctuation in Left to Right positions in Right to Left subtitles was worked around.
A couple of fixes for WebVTT subtitles were made to resolve overlapping of segments.
Line spacing has been altered in our use of libass to avoid overlapping of text boxes.
UPnP

@enen92 has made a number of improvements and fixes when Kodi is being used as a UPnP server. He has fixed a number of regressions around listings and artwork.
Thanks, as always, to everyone who has helped us track down and fix any issues. We endeavour to minimise the issues everyone experiences, but with such a large project, and the fact everyone contributing to Kodi is a volunteer, issues and bugs are a part of life. if you happen to experience any bugs/issues, don't hesitate to reach out on the forums, or raise an issue on Github.

As this is a point release, there are no major changes since the previous version, and you should be fine to install this straight over the top of any existing Kodi 20.x installation - indeed, this will happen automatically on many platforms. However, as for all software installations, back up your userdata beforehand if you've any doubts or have anything you can't afford to lose (and definitely do this if you're going for a major version upgrade).

https://github.com/xbmc/xbmc/milestone/154?closed=1


Kodi 20.0 "Nexus" - Release
Release
Team Kodi
January 15, 2023

It's Time! We are pleased to present the latest release of Kodi, v20 "Nexus".

With over 4,600 commits since v19 "Matrix" was released on February 19th, 2021, this has been a huge effort. Thanks go out to our team members, and everyone in our community who sent a pull request, tested and gave feedback, or provided support to users on the forum. We appreciate your contribution to making Kodi better.

Let's review some of the changes you can expect:

Major Features
Multiple Instances of Binary Add-ons
This allows Kodi to load multiple instances of a binary add-on. For example: TVHeadend users can now run more than one instance of the add-on to connect to multiple back-end TVHeadend servers, with individual settings like channel groups and hidden channels maintained per add-on instance. @AlwinEsch was the developer behind a lot of this, with support from @ksooo. Your favourite binary add-on may not support this capability yet, but we hope add-on developers introduce this into their projects soon.

AV1 Video Support
Several Kodi platforms now allow hardware decoding of AV1 media. The Inputstream API has been updated to support AV1 and this allows add-ons using inputsream.adaptive to play AV1 streams.

Subtitles Rework
Massive rework of the subtitle system was undertaken by @CastagnaIT making subtitle formats more consistent for development and maintenance, and enabling features that were previously not possible. Kodi now supports dynamic positioning of fonts, changing of border and background colours, subtitle positioning, improved multi-language support, and more. If you are a regular user of subtitles, jump on in and check it all out.

Game (libretro) Savestate Support
The GSOC 2020 project of @NikosSiak received some polishing touches before finally (!) being merged. With mentoring from @VelocityRa and @gusandrianos, and the assistance of @garbear, this has been a long time coming. This feature allows you to save game state at any time, even if games do not provide native savestate features themselves. Great for gamers, and times when you aren't watching Videos with Kodi ;)

Windows HDR Support
Full HDR support for the Windows Desktop platform has been implemented by @thexai along with many improvements throughout the Windows (DXVA/2) video pipeline. HDR is not available on non-Desktop, i.e. UWP Store (Xbox) versions. Improvements to allow more accurate ACES Filmic and HABLE tonemapping make even SDR video look better, and these capabilities are implemented for both UWP and Desktop versions of Kodi.

NFSv4 Support
Changes to allow NFSv4 support were implemented by @lrusak as previously we only supported NFSv3. There are some caveats with this (you must explicitly select either NFSv4 or NFSv3 for a source). Give it a try!

Context Menu Consistency
Improvements to right-click/long-press context menu handling were made by @ksooo in numerous areas. This makes the function of the context menu much more consistent over different windows, and enabled some new capabilities like the playback of albums directly from widgets, series resume, etc. to be added.

Behind The Scenes
The majority of changes are "under the hood" and invisible to users but improve the stability, performance, and safety of Kodi. API changes have been made to evolve Python and Binary add-ons and bring new skinning features. There are updates to Kodi dependencies on most if not all Kodi platforms. Fixes from regular use of code static-analysis tools. Database migration fixes for a smoother update ... and lots more.

There are too many individual changes to detail everything. If you would like to know more, please look back through the Nexus Alpha to RC2 release announcements https://kodi.tv/blog/tag/release and review the GitHub changelog https://github.com/xbmc/xbmc/compare/19.0-Matrix...20.0-Nexus.


Kodi "Matrix" 19.5 Release
Release
Prof Yaffle
December 24, 2022

Happy Holidays, everyone! To celebrate, here we have release 19.5. This release caps off the v19 Matrix development cycle - we are not intending anything further now until 20.0 "Nexus".

Without further fanfare, then I give you Kodi "Matrix" 19.5: more bug fixes, some backports, no real new features. Full changelog since 19.4 on Github, as usual.

https://github.com/xbmc/xbmc/compare/19.4-Matrix...19.5-Matrix


Kodi "Matrix" 19.4 Release
Release
Prof Yaffle
March 05, 2022

Is it too late to say "Happy New Year"? Probably, but this is still the first release of 2022, so let's go with that anyway.

It's point release o'clock once more, so, without further fanfare, I give you Kodi "Matrix" 19.4: more bug fixes, some backports, no real new features. Full changelog since 19.3 on Github, as usual.

Estuary

Fix: Home screen context menu fix for when there are more than 10 items in menu.
Fix: Seekbar wouldn't disappear after 5 sec when using remote app e.g. Kore or JSON to pause Kodi.
Input

Fix: English keyboard missing semi-colon.
Fix: Chinese keyboard character now displaying correctly.
Music

Fix: Artist discography export to NFO.
PVR

New: Sort method for recordings based on season and episode.
Fix: Crash when navigating an empty guide.
Fix: Hiding/deleting channel group now working correctly.
UI

Fix: Any Favourites for a restricted/locked media source are now hidden.
Fix: Blu-ray ISO title and watched status now displayed correctly.
Fix: Wrong language identified from subtitle name corrected.
Video

Fix: EDL mute now working.
Fix: ASS subtitles display now working correctly.
Android specifics

Fix: Audio buffers adjusted.
Fix: Various TrueHD stutter/dropout issues corrected.
Linux specifics

Fix: Automatic play of DVDs.
MacOS specifics

Fix: Mouse cursor positioning in full-screen.
Windows specifics

Fix: Flickering with interlaced H.264 SD on AMD GPUs.
Fix: Crash on unexpected network configuration (e.g. no MAC address obtained).
Xbox specifics

New: Passthrough audio via WASAPI.
Fix: Permission error preventing installation of Python add-ons.
Thanks, as always, to everyone who has helped us track down and fix any issues.

As this is a point release, there are no major changes since the previous version, and you should be fine to install this straight over the top of any existing Kodi 19.x installation - indeed, this will happen automatically on many platforms. However, as for all software installations, back up your userdata beforehand if you've any doubts or have anything you can't afford to lose (and definitely do this if you're going for a major version upgrade).

If you're interested, you can read the merged PRs here. If you want to read back on the full history of v19 itself, or of previous versions, you can find the corresponding articles in the relevant blog posts.

Application deployment on different platforms (notably the Microsoft Store) can vary considerably due to circumstances outside of our control, so just be patient, and the update will inevitably find its way through.


Kodi "Matrix" 19.3 Release
Prof Yaffle
October 25, 2021

Okay, we know that we've only just released 19.2, and some of you are probably even still waiting for that, but that's a big part of the reason we need to push out a new build. We still had some challenges with the Xbox release, and some other issues came to light that we didn't want to ignore - so, rather than get into platform-specific point releases, we thought we'd just nudge up to 19.3 and go for it.

As with other point releases, don't go looking for new features, as that isn't really the purpose here. Full details are on GitHub, but here's the short form...

We've had some challenges getting the Xbox version released because of some specific platform requirements needed for 4k/HEVC playback. With the help of @CelesAtXbox (thanks so much!) we think we've now genuinely got those covered to Microsoft's satisfaction, and can finally get this into the Windows Store.
There's also an issue with an expired certificate for 18.9 on Xbox, which effectively takes that version off that platform for new installations, so timing is opportune to fix that.
There's been a long-standing Atmos audio issue on all platforms that support TrueHD passthrough - we know that this this has been irritating people for some time, and we've now been able to fix this.
We unintentionally introduced a bug in 19.2 that broke Airplay, so we've fixed that one.
A couple of gaming-related fixes, notably a controller fix and some shader issues on Retroplayer.
We've fixed a bug that affected thumbnails for watched episodes when hiding episode spoilers.
We've much improved the metadata shown in Linux app stores.

https://github.com/xbmc/xbmc/pulls?q=is%3Apr+sort%3Aupdated-desc+milestone%3A%22Matrix+19.3%22+label%3A%22v19+Matrix%22+


Kodi "Matrix" 19.2 Release
Prof Yaffle
October 08, 2021

It's been some time since we released 19.1, and numerous issues have revealed themselves and been resolved in the intervening months. As such, we're probably overdue a formal release of the updates, so, without further ado - here's the latest release in the "Matrix" series.

As with other point releases, don't go looking for new features, as that isn't really the purpose here. Full details are on GitHub, but here's the short form...

PVR

Fixed: crash when accessing invalid PVR channel from favourites
Fixed: crash on startup while searching for missing channel icons
Fixed: crash on startup caused by missing timer type
Fixed: "Delete permanently" of recordings from trash
Other, more minor bug fixes
Video Library

Fixed a bug that deleted UniqueID's when scraping the library, which caused unexpected behaviour for addons relying on those ID's
Games

Added translations for emulators and game controller add-ons
JSON-RPC

Expose icon path of EPG tags as 'thumbnail' property
Expose series number of EPG tags as 'seasonnum' property.
Network

Websocket: handles partial messages
Add-ons

Fixed: display logic for official and third-party modules
Windows specifics

Fixed: possible crash when switching monitors due to adding/removing hardware.
Fixed: audio passthrough not working (randomly) on some systems when display refresh rate match is enabled.
Improved: flip discard swap chain is used on all Windows 10 systems even if graphics driver does not support latest DirectX feature levels.
Improved: 10-bit swap chain is used by default on Windows 10 systems when HDR display is detected (for 8-bit SDR video sources too).
Fixed: possible crash related to WS-Discovery when non-computer devices (e.g. IP cameras) are attached to the same network.
Fixed: possible crash when HDR is toggled on/off externally from Windows 10 display settings.
Fixed: no picture or wrong black level with some video drivers when limited range output is enabled in conjunction with hardware acceleration DXVA2 and HDR passthrough.
Android specifics

Fixed: external storage volumes not visible on devices running old Android versions
Xbox specifics

The big news here is that we can finally make 19.x "Matrix" available on the Xbox - thanks for putting up with the delay while we fixed the blockers!

Fixed: crash on playback of 4K HEVC videos due to out-of-memory condition.
Fixed: GUI rendered at 1080 and upscaled to 4K instead of native 4K.
Fixed: 4K resolution is incorrectly reported in logs as 1920x1080.
Fixed: crash when "Switch display refresh rate at Start/Stop" is enabled with 4K resolution.
Fixed: tone mapping not used by default at playback HDR videos.
Fixed: missing display refresh rate info on Video Debug Info OSD (Alt+O).
Fixed: Internet SSL connectivity not working due not usable path to built-in CA certs bundle.
Improved: swap chain performance using DXGI_SWAP_EFFECT_FLIP_DISCARD.
Improved: 10-bit swap chain surfaces are used if an HDR-capable TV is detected (even for 8-bit SDR videos).
Improved: HEVC DXVA2 decoder performance using 128 byte aligned decoder surfaces.
Thanks, as always, to everyone who has helped by reporting, isolating or fixing issues.

You should be fine to install this straight over the top of your existing Kodi version - indeed, this will happen automatically on many platforms - but, if you've any doubts, back up your userdata beforehand. Similarly, this is a minor version bump, so there's no change to database versions or anything similar on the vast majority of platforms; the exception is obviously Xbox, where users need to be aware that, for them, this is a major upgrade (18.9 to 19.2).

https://github.com/xbmc/xbmc/pulls?q=is%3Apr+sort%3Aupdated-desc+milestone%3A%22Matrix+19.2%22+label%3A%22v19+Matrix%22+


Kodi "Matrix" 19.1 Release

It is a truth universally acknowledged that, no matter how much testing you do before a major release, you'll never find and squash anything like all the bugs until you get a proper, large-scale, mass test of the code. In other words, it's time for a bugfix release on the Kodi 19 "Matrix" series, as - thanks to your feedback - we've managed to fix a whole batch of issues over the past few weeks.

In no particular order, this version includes fixes for the following:

As a bug fix release, don't bother going to look for new features; while there are some, that's not the main purpose of this version. Full details are on GitHub, but here's the short form...

Video

Fixed: HDR metadata is now detected in VP9 profile 2 streams and can be used on platforms that support HDR passthrough or tone mapped when playing this kind of videos.
Discs

Fixed: playback of optical DVDs in Linux
Fixed: BD-J Blu-ray chapter skipping via remotes/keyboard
PVR

Fixed: context menu not accessible in PVR Guide window when using very basic remote to control Kodi
Fixed: client channel name and number not persisted when changed
Fixed: play count and resume position of recordings lost after Kodi restart
Fixed: crash while browsing the EPG when MySQL is used as EPG database
Fixed: next recording on ... label time is not localized in Estuary Timer/Timer rules window
Fixed: channel manager does not rename backend channel
Fixed: playing archived programme not selected when opening the Guide window
Fixed: GUI not updated on removal/insert/hide/unhide of channel groups
Updated: improved look of PVR windows in Estuary
Music Library

Fixed: issue with music from cuesheets where only the first track was being added to the library on rescanning, with the rest being deleted
JSON-RPC

Fixed: PVR - Reintroduced broadcast properties 'hastimer', 'hastimerrule', 'hasrecording', 'recording'
Fixed: PVR - Reintroduced channel property 'isrecording'
Subtitles

Fixed: detection of system fonts (directwrite) on windows for ASS subtitles
Fixed: detection of user fonts (in userdata/fonts) for ASS subtitles
Fixed: rendering of semi-transparent ASS subtitles on Wayland
GUI/Interface

Fixed: media flagging for DVD/BluRay
Web Interface

Updated: Chorus2 based on community contributions
Filesystem

Updated: enable filecaching by default for network filesystems
Updated: improve filecache error handling
Network

Updated: improved reliability for HTTP and NFS network filesystems
Windows specifics

Added: support for WS-Discovery protocol that enables locating SMB servers and browsing shared folders using SMBv3.
Added: debug Info OSD Video. Extends current Debug Info Player (Ctrl+Shift+O) with new video-only info (Alt+O)
Fixed: with some unusual streams, incorrect HDR metadata could be passed (HDR10 passthrough).
Fixed: green screen on systems with old HW (DX feature level 9.1) playing 10-bit videos.
Fixed: black screen with Software render method and with DXVA2 hardware acceleration disabled.
Fixed: green screen when playing the menu of some DVDs (MPEG2 SD only).
Fixed: credentials being requested for anonymous SMB shares
Updated: VC runtimes included in the installer to add compatibility with VS2019 and VS2017 at the same time.
Android specifics

Fixed: SMB shares mounted on system level not visible in Kodi
Fixed: SMB shares labelled with cryptic numbers (UUID) instead of actual disk name
Xbox specifics

This version also brings 19.1 to the Xbox - while 19.0 has been in the Microsoft Store since launch, this was Windows-only while we found a way to adequately test the new release on Xbox. We've fixed that now, so Xbox users will automatically upgrade from 18.9 to 19.1 if you've got auto-update enabled. It's worth mentioning that there's a known memory limitation - present in 18.x as well - that causes Xbox application crashes with 4k content, so please be aware.

https://github.com/xbmc/xbmc/pulls?q=is%3Apr+sort%3Aupdated-desc+milestone%3A%22Matrix+19.1%22+label%3A%22v19+Matrix%22+


Kodi 19.0 "Matrix" - Release

... yes, it's here! After several iterations of alpha, beta and RC, Team Kodi is pleased to announce that Kodi 19.0 "Matrix" has just been formally released on all supported platforms. Dare you take the red pill, and find out how deep the rabbit-hole goes?

By the numbers, then, this version is the product of:

Nearly 50 individual open source developers contributed code
About 5,000 commits in over 1,500 pull requests since the first release of 18.x "Leia"
Over 5,500 changed files, with some 600,000 lines of code added, changed or removed
Countless hours of dedicated free time conceiving, designing, developing and testing (including all the infrastructure you see around them, including this web site)
... and, of course,very little travelling, obviously - that's not good at the moment!
The broad list of new features is below, but - before we get to that - I'd just like to take a moment to say "thank you" to the huge amounts of work put in by the broadest team behind this release. Whether you submitted a few lines of code or a major new feature; whether you worked on video, audio, gaming, or a skin; whether you tested in pre-release and helped identify a problem, debugged an issue or updated a translation; whether you fixed some documentation, looked after the various systems that keep kodi.tv running, or helped to moderate the forum - thank you, one and all. Kodi is a community, and, without all of you, we would all lose something.

So, onward - what have we got. If you've been following the release cycle, you'll have seen these already, but for people who only take final releases... hold on, it's a long list!

Kodi 19 "Matrix" Features
Playback

For audio and music lovers, there are significant improvements across the board to metadata handling: library improvements, new tags, new displays, improvements to how Kodi handles release dates, album durations, multi-disc sets, and more. There's a new, Matrix-inspired visualisation, there are improvements to display when fetching files from a web server, and several changes to how audio decoder addons can pass information through to the Kodi player.

For video, most of the changes are more technical, and may depend on your hardware: AV1 software decoding, HLG HDR and static HDR10 playback on Windows 10, static HDR10 and dynamic Dolby Vision HDR support on Android, and more OpenGL bicubic scalers.

For those who combine the two, and have libraries of music videos, you get some goodies as well: database and metadata display improvements mean that Kodi will now fetch and display related album and artist information from the music library, where appropriate. There are also new features around grouping videos by artist (not just album), support for .NFO files that list all performers instead of just the main artist, plus better search links to return related albums and videos by the same director director.

And, finally, if your definition of "play" is more game-related, we've implemented integer scaling to improve the viewing quality of Pixel Art games across the board, while iOS get support for Xbox, PlayStation and other supported Bluetooth game controllers.

Skin/Look-and-Feel

For many people, the interface is Kodi - it's how you find your way around, it's how you interact with the application and your media. As such, it's always getting some attention, and this release is no different: screen redesign, especially for music; new metadata displays; changes to playlist views; a new "now playing" view; artwork and image file improvements; both new and updated GUI controls. Some changes may be subtle, but all are designed to improve your experience.

Subtitles

An often-overlooked feature, but immensely useful to so many people, subtitles get some attention in this release: timestamp overlays get fixed, plus you can now select a dark grey colour and set an opacity for the captions.

Addons and Scrapers

Python comes in for some major changes in Kodi 19. Because the old Python 2.7 has gone out of support, we've finally made the wholesale move to Python 3 and ported our addons across. Much of the community has come with us, so, hopefully, your favourite addons will still function, but we're at the mercy of third-party contributors to update their work.

Kodi 19 replaces the old XML metadata scrapers with new default Python for movies and TV shows; there are also new Python scrapers for music, Generic Album Scraper and Generic Artist Scraper. Binary addons in general get improvements to system documentation, cleaned up settings dialogs, and better help text.

PVR and Live Television

Another significant part of Kodi that's had a lot of attention in this release. Most new features here revolve around usability: PVR reminders, home screen widgets, group/channel manager enhancements, navigation and dialog controls, context menus, New/Live/Finale/Premiere tags, channel numbering and sorting, performance improvements, API improvements.

Security

There are a few new security features implemented now in Kodi, to help keep you safe from intentional or unintentional problems. Kodi will now enforce the origin of installed addons and their dependencies, which prevents third-party repositories from overwriting code of unrelated add-ons; broken or deprecated add-ons are now highlighted in the add-on list, so you have to actively agree to activate one; the binary addon system now has higher security around data exchange between Kodi and an addons. In addition, we've added a default requirement to password-protect Kodi's web interface, plus give better information around the security implications of enabling external interfaces if you do choose to enable them.

Platform Specifics

As a cross-platform application, we try our very best to keep all platforms feature equivalent where we can. However, there are inevitably platform differences, and we also have to make room by dropping old platforms as technology moves on.

The big platform change with this release is new support for tvOS, but this means waving goodbye to iOS 32-bit. Beyond that, there are specific tweaks such as specific TopShelf support and fixes on AppleTV, better logging and notch support on iOS, and a move to a single Linux binary for multiple windowing systems (X11, Wayland, and GBM) versus the previous three. That last one will make a big difference to both users and package maintainers, since you'll no longer have to select a different binary based on the target environment.

Behind the Scenes

Probably too hidden for many users, but there are inevitably changes and improvements that you can't see, but might give more scope for new features later on: API changes to feed subtitle URIs to the player; multiple updates to various core modules; improvements to API calls and actions, and many more. They may not be important to you, but they took real work and I mention them for completeness.

https://github.com/xbmc/xbmc/compare/19.0RC1-Matrix...19.0-Matrix


Kodi 19.x "Matrix" - Release Candidate

And, off we go again. The dust settles on the festive season, so it's time for another pre-release to hit the streets... we're getting close to final release now, so we're moving out of Beta and into RC.

If you want to know the main features in this release series, please refer back to previous blog posts: this is an iteration of previous Beta releases, not a feature release, remember.

This is stable, reliable code, suitable for daily use. Please, then: install, test, and give us clear feedback on any remaining issues, either with the new features or perhaps with a regression in existing code. As this is a release candidate, we think it's basically ready to go, but let's aim to make sure.

https://github.com/xbmc/xbmc/compare/19.0b2-Matrix...19.0RC1-Matrix


Kodi 19.x "Matrix" - Beta 2

So, here we go again. Nothing earth-shattering, just a quick note to tell you that the second Beta of Kodi 19.x "Matrix" is now available for installation.

If you want to know the main features in this release series, please refer back to previous blog posts, especially the Beta 1 announcement: this is entirely a bugfix release, so - as befits a second Beta - there are no new features over Beta 1.

By this stage, there should be no show-stopping bugs, and this release should be pretty reliable - just make sure you know how to roll back, just in case. Please: install, test, and give us clear feedback on any issues you uncover, either with the new features or perhaps with a regression in existing code. We can then work to resolve these before we go to full release.

You can get Beta 2 from here, or - if appropriate - our nightly PPA here. If you're on Android, you can enrol in our Beta programme and get updates directly from Google Play.

See https://github.com/xbmc/xbmc/compare/19.0b1-Matrix...19.0b2-Matrix


Kodi 19.x "Matrix" - Beta 1

Lights! Camera! Action!

... nearly. It's Beta time for Kodi 19.x "Matrix", so let's take another step towards the Great Unveiling.

As we now move into Beta, this release is much more about fixes than features: while there will be the odd new functionality, we're concentrating very much more on getting everything working properly from this point.

To recap, then, one of the main objectives of 19.x "Matrix" is to release a production version of Kodi with Python 3 addons as early in 2021 as we can. That can only happen with enthusiastic community support, lots of good humour and willingness to see the best in others - well, that and coffee/beer (delete as applicable), of course!

Why Python 3? Simply, because Python 2 went end-of-life in January 2020, so the whole IT industry is lurching over to the new platform. It's generally taking a long time, but it's necessary if you want active support, bugfixes, the latest third-party libraries, security patches, and the like. You can see some of Kodi's announcements about this change in previous blog posts.

Beyond that, though, here's a quick recap of the major new features in 19.x "Matrix" - as well, of course, as many fixes and code changes that won't be as obvious:

Audio/Music

Improvements covering multi-disc CD sets and box sets; metadata improvements such as better handling of album release dates, album durations, etc.; new fullscreen/visualisation settings; new Matrix-inspired visualisation; support for file tags over http(s).
Music Videos

Improved links with the music library to e.g. fetch related album/artist information, display both videos and albums when searching, display more linked information in info dialogs, etc.; improvements around grouping of all music videos by artist (vs album only); enhanced .nfo handling for multiple performers.
Skin/Look-and-Feel

Multiple improvements to Estuary, particularly around music and music videos, including: a redesign of the fullscreen/visualisation music window; additional metadata display; new “Now Playing” view; chapter information for music videos; enhanced “now playing” and “next item” views; a generally improved “out of the box” behaviour with regard to music and video library artwork.
Games

Improved game controller support on iOS; improvements to image quality in Pixel Art games.
Playback

Software decoding of AV1;subtitle improvements with new dark grey colour and selectable opacity; ability to provide a subtitle URI (URL, local file, etc.); static HDR10 and dynamic Dolby Vision HDR support (platform- and client-dependent).
PVR

A host of improvements, including PVR reminders; TV/Radio channel groups, home screen widgets and dynamic PVR categories for Estuary; enhancements to the Group and Channel manager; navigation/usability improvements such as context menus, selection persistence, and EPG controls; info dialog enhancements; improvements to PVR handling via the API.
Security

Various improvements to user information, e.g. the security implications of enabling external interfaces or a prompt when enabling a broken/deprecated addon; a requirement for a web interface password by default; new origin enforcement for addons and dependencies, so third-party addons can’t overwrite code of other, unrelated addons.
Information Providers/Scrapers

New Python scrapers for music, TV and movies (linked to the Python 3 move).
... plus many code and platform-specific fixes and improvements that might be less visible to most users, but are still significant, such as the move to a single Linux binary for multiple windowing systems (X11, Wayland, and GBM).


After 18 months of hard work by the team and community, we now feel that Kodi v19.x "Matrix" is stable enough to enter beta phase of the release cycle and start to be used "in anger". As above, our focus is now entirely on testing and fixes, moving in steps to a final release as soon as we practically can. This release should be pretty reliable for most users - if you do choose to install it, make sure you know how to roll back, just in case, but you should be safe. We need your help to find and isolate the remaining bugs (including, of course, any regressions), so, please: install, test, and give us clear feedback on any issues you uncover. We can then aim to get these resolved in upcoming releases.

https://github.com/xbmc/xbmc/compare/19.0a3-Matrix...19.0b1-Matrix


Kodi 19.x "Matrix" - Alpha 3

So... drum roll...hot on the heels of 19.x "Matrix" Alpha 2, and after a quick detour for an unexpected 18.9 "Leia" release, we bring you the stunningly-named 19.x "Matrix" Alpha 3. This will hopefully be the last of our alpha releases, before we move into beta and onto formal release (but no promises, obviously).

Usual caveats: while we're approaching beta, this is still an alpha, and some things will be broken. That is, basically, the whole point of releasing it, after all: find the problems, and fix them before final release.

Here's a non-exhaustive list of the major feature changes since the last release, although there have also been many more improvements and "behind the curtains" fixes:

Music Library

Small fixes to album duration for music in unusual folder layouts, and triggering rescraping of a single artist or album.
Music Videos

Fetch related album and artist info (including art, bio, review etc) from the music library where appropriate
Display all music videos for an artist, not just the ones related to an album when navigating by artist
Searching from the info dialog for an artist now includes all of related library albums as well as any videos
Possibility to use .nfo files so that the artist list can now show all performers from music videos, not just the main artist
Info dialogs will display data from the music library where there's a corresponding artist and/or album
Fix the same director search for music videos
Playback

Correct the colour mapping of HLG HDR playback in SDR mode on Windows 10
Add HLG HDR playback as HDR10 on Windows 10 (as Windows does not support passthrough of HLG)
Added support for more OpenGL bicubic scalers
Skin/Look-and-Feel

[Estuary] Add chapter info from music videos to OSD
[Estuary] Improve the next item in playlist info for music videos by adding artist/album details if available
[Estuary] Improve the Now Playing info for music videos when not in full-screen video by adding artist/album details if available
[Estuary] Optional poster for music videos
Behaviour changes to DialogAddonInfo buttons (e.g. contextual focus defaults to install, update, configure, etc.)
Add PVR.TimeShiftSeekbar infolabel to expose seekbar outside of the SeekBar dialog
Games

Implement integer scaling support to improve the viewing quality of Pixel Art games
Information Providers/Scrapers

New default Python metadata scrapers for movies and TV shows (replacing old XML scrapers)
API/JSON-RPC

Add ability to apply a new subtitle URI to the player, e.g. URL, local file, etc.
Updates to allow VideoLibrary.Clean by directory
Improvements and fixes around PVR handling via the API
PVR

Remember last opened (vs current last played) TV/Radio group across restarts


Kodi "Leia" 18.9 Release

Mutter, mutter... "18.8 will be the last", they said... "all efforts will go into 19.x now", they said... famous last words...

Okay, one more roll of the "Leia" die, although this one is really driven by circumstances beyond our control. Technical changes by Cloudflare caused significant issues with HTTP access to any site using them - metadata sources, for example - and we need to put in a quick workaround before everyone gets too upset; while 19.x "Matrix" is close, it's not close enough to leave these issues unaddressed. So, as we're building that new code, we thought that we might as well fix a couple of other regressions while we're here.

With no further fanfare, then, here's what you've got in this release:

Work around third-party changes to HTTP2 and SSL/encryption that impacted internet access from Kodi by scrapers, streaming addons, etc.
Fix memory leaks in TexturePacker
Fix event server unable to send raw key strikes
Fix issues around directory navigation and incorrectly-set start directories
Fix MediaCodec OES/EGL rendering

https://github.com/xbmc/xbmc/compare/18.8-Leia...18.9-Leia


Kodi 19.x "Matrix" - Alpha 2

It's been more than a month since our last "preview" release, so it's time we boxed up something new for everyone.

The usual drill applies: this is an alpha, some things will be broken, your home is at risk if something goes wrong, it might run off with your partner, don't blame us if it eats your kittens. Otherwise, though, all should be fine.

Latest changes:

Playback

Music: Display album duration in info dialog. Album duration can be used in smart playlists in the same way as for songs
Music: Read tags and and album art from music files served from an http(s) server
Music: Fix list view of files containing multiple streams
Feature: Audio decoder addons can now pass more information on Kodi (album, year, notes ...)
Audio decoder addons can now pass more information to Kodi (album, year, notes ...)
Subtitles

ASS: Fixed timestamp overlapping overlays
Skin/Look-and-Feel

Improvements to both music and video library artwork
Better "out the box" behaviour, optionally use all image files found in media folders
Artwork levels - max, basic, custom, none
GUI settings for custom configuration of whitelists (replacing awkward editing of advancedsettings.xml)
Redesigned SeekBar that will auto-hide when video playback is paused
Platform Specifics

Apple TV
Fix Kodi crash on start after a manual install with dpkg -i command (jailbroken devices only)
Fix TopShelf feature after a manual install with dpkg -i command (jailbroken devices only except Unc0verTV devices, needs investigation)
Fix missing thumbs on TopShelf items
Python/Addons

Fix scripts/plugins not being notified of abortRequest intents on app close
Deprecate xbmc.translatepath in favour of xbmcvfs.translatepath towards convergence with the binary addon API
Broken/deprecated add-ons are now highlighted in the add-on list, and you're now prompted when you try to activate one
Fix: Prevent VFS addon changes (update, disable and uninstall) if in use
Fix: VFS addon problem, where Kodi needed a restart before showing a newly-installed version
Binary addon system revised to ensure higher security in data exchange between addon and Kodi (only inputstream missing)
Revised binary add-on system documentation for outside developers (only inputstream missing)
Internal binary add-on settings dialogs cleaned up, plus updated help text (audioencoder.kodi.builtin.aac, audioencoder.kodi.builtin.wma, screensaver.xbmc.builtin.dim)


Kodi 19.x "Matrix" - Alpha 1

So, here we go. Hot on the heels of what is intended to be the final release in the 18.x "Leia" series, it's time to give you good people a taste of things to come. So, with no further ado, we'd like to present the first Alpha releases of Kodi 19.x "Matrix".

This is a major release, so, as you'd expect, it comes with many new features. However, it will inevitably cause problems for some people, which is why we'll go through a more traditional Alpha/Beta/Release Candidate model. As such, then, please be aware that installing this will inevitably break things, and we'd really like your help at that point to identify the problems and get them fixed.

So, all that aside... what's actually changed?

Audio/Music

Improved handling of multi-disc CD sets and box sets
Additional metadata tags
Improved handling of album release dates
New setting to open music fullscreen/visualisation window automatically when playback is started
A new, Matrix-inspired music visualisation is now available to install - great care has been put into making this perform well on lower-end systems
Video

Software decoding of the AV1 CODEC
Subtitles

Subtitle opacity can now be changed
New dark grey colour for subtitles
Estuary Skin

Redesign of the music fullscreen/visualisation window to match other fullscreen windows - allows fanart and visualisations to be shown without coloured overlays
Additional media info flags added to music fullscreen/visualisation window info display
The default Playlist view now uses the Widelist view format with options on the sideblade menu as in other areas of the skin
A new "Now Playing" view added for music playback, showing media details for both any selected song in the playlist and those for any currently playing song
Games

iOS now supports game controllers (Xbox/PlayStation/other supported Bluetooth controllers)
Platform Specifics

Darwin (Apple) platforms:
Objective-C code migrated from manual memory management to ARC
iOS:
Added showing total/free space
Kodi log can now be shared using native sharing sheet
Kodi GUI is no longer obscured on devices with notch
macOS:
Blank Other Displays setting no longer requires app restart
"Toggle fullscreen" now uses default macOS shortcut
Android:
Static HDR10 support for all source types (if supported by the device)
Dynamic Dolby Vision HDR support for streaming services (if supported by the device)
Windows:
Static HDR10 support for all source types (if supported by the GPU)
Information Providers (scrapers)

New python scrapers for music - available in repo as Generic Album Scraper and Generic Artist Scraper
New python scrapers for TV & movies - available in repo as The Movie Database Python and The TVDB (new)
PVR

PVR reminders
TV and radio channel groups and Estuary home screen widgets
Group manager usability enhancements
Channel manager usability enhancements
Guide window navigation controls
Estuary PVR information dialog enhancements
Setting 'Switch to full screen' now supports channel types
Playlist context menu items for recordings
Dynamic PVR categories for Estuary home screen
Ability to sort channels and EPG by the backend order of channels
Support group specific channel numbering and option to start group number locally from 1
Support for starting EPG entries as live
Support displaying recording sizes and being able to sort by them
New, Live, Finale and Premiere for EPG, recordings and timers
Guide window performance improvements
Search window performance improvements
EPG performance and memory usage optimisations
C++ API for PVR Addon development
Network

Improved information around the security implications of enabling external interfaces
Added default-on switch to require a password for the web interface
Kodi will now enforce the origin of installed add-ons and their dependencies. This has been implemented to prevent third party repositories from overwriting code of unrelated add-ons, which was the cause of numerous error reports in the past.
Improved support around official repos, allowing users some safeguards when installing private repositories
Addons

Probably the biggest change: with this release, we move to Python 3 for addons (see note below).
Kodi will now enforce the origin of installed addons and their dependencies. This has been implemented to prevent third party repositories from overwriting code of unrelated add-ons, which was the cause of numerous error reports in the past.
Due to the discontinuation of Python 2, Kodi now utilises Python 3 for addons. Because of this change, this update might disable addons where a compatible version isn't available, although these will be reactivated as soon as their authors provide new versions. The list of Kodi Matrix compatible addons available from the official repository is growing by the week, but not everything has been ported over yet.



If you want to take the plunge, you can get Alpha 1 from here. Again, though, please: expect some breakage, don't use this as your daily installation unless you know how to get things working again, and please share your experiences back with us so we can really get going on those bugs.

As usual - well, it is open source - you can see what's changed between v18 and v19 here. It's a long list...


Kodi "Leia" 18.8 Release

So, here we are again. Those of you with eagle eyes may already have seen this rolling out, but just to make everyone else aware - 18.8 is here. In our ongoing quest to make your lives as simple and fulfilling as possible, we're proud to present what is likely to be the final release in the 18.x "Leia" series, before all effort now shifts to 19.x "Matrix".

As usual, this is a bug fix release, so don't go looking for new features. Full details are on GitHub, but here's the short form... as you'd expect this late in the 18.x development cycle, this isn't a huge release, but it does include some things we thought were necessary to keep us going until the next major release emerges. In summary, this version:

Fixes a severe security issue in gnutls (Linux)
Other significant library/compatibility updates
Gets client/server on MariaDB 10.5.4 working for Android
Fixes video database access for Ubuntu 20.4 (search and other filtering failed)
Fixes subtitle handling from archives
Fixes CDDB access
Makes minor improvements to logging and memory reporting/display
Fixes EDLs where skip points are at the very start of a file
Contains code improvements to fix specific events, e.g. race conditions in the EPG or "pause" on end of streams on Android
Enables alpha blending for the video player (Windows)
Better handles specific exceptions (Android, mostly)

Full details https://github.com/xbmc/xbmc/compare/18.7-Leia...18.8-Leia


Kodi "Leia" 18.7 Release

You may have noticed that we've adopted a RERO approach to Kodi - release early, release often. Our aim is to fix problems more quickly, and then get those fixes out into the wild equally as quickly. This might mean some issues escape alongside the bug fixes, but, overall, it should mean better software, sooner, and without the disruption of a major version bump.

So, with no further fanfare: another release in the Kodi 18.x "Leia" cycle. The usual rules apply: bug fixes, not new features or functionality; most will be invisible, but will be much-appreciated if you're been suffering from a problem we've managed to address.

You can find full details of closed pull requests on GitHub, so explore that if you want the details, but TL;DR...



Audio

Fix to not reset user-set volume (Android)
Fixes around multi-channel audio track support
Playback/Display

Fixes to Bluray subtitle language recognition
Fix playback of bus-encrypted bluray discs
Improved library handing for plugins if media source is removed
Use JNI instead of NDK for MediaCodec (Android)
Further work on maximum width and height/vertical-shift (Android)
Fixes around realtime handling of TS streams
Interface/Look-and-feel

Fix for watch icons not showing when content type is not set (Estouchy)
Fix navigation in skinsettings (Estuary)
Fix crash in favourites dialog
Apply safe area insets to Kodi GUI (iOS)
Fixes around focus after touch action
Improvements around dialog/toast handling
Fixed behaviour when accessing locked media sources
Music

Fixes around library handling of "isalbumartist" field
Fixes around expansion of .ISO images to avoid GUI freezes
Ensure album artist isn't blanked out when scraping
Build System

Fix downloading dependencies from mirrors (Windows)
Library updates - bump gnutls (3.6.11.1) and nettle(3.5.1)
PVR

Fix EPG corruption when new channels are added during startup
Network

Improvements around handling of proxy credentials
Fix for proxy empty fields (proxy, username, password)
Addons-

Fix crash if an incompatible VFS addon is present
Fix display of title for compressed package directories
Fixes around addon settings folder naming
Subtitles

Fixes around decoding of HTML escape characters
Fix around SMI (SAMI) subtitles and quoted start tags
Profiles

Fixes for issues related to switching profile
Fixes to saving of lock preferences (master lock, lock video windows, etc.)
Other/General

Add "Swiss German" and "Portuguese (Brazil)" to language codes
Fix to guard against assert in tinyxml
Fix stack overflow when trying to find NFO files in a RAR file
Implement range checking in URIUtils::resolvePath
Implement support for extended local headers in ZIP files used by some scrapers

https://github.com/xbmc/xbmc/compare/18.6-Leia...18.7-Leia


Kodi "Leia" 18.6 Release

And.... here we are again. The latest Kodi release in the 18.x "Leia" cycle, with more (count them!) and better (measure them!) bug fixes for your various delight, delectation, and delirious... discussion?

18.6 is here. More nasty (and not-so-nasty) problems fixed, more bugs squashed, more happiness and love for all. This release is all about backports: where practical, we've brought bug fixes forwards from the forthcoming 19.x release, so you get the benefit sooner rather than later.

As usual, you can find full details of closed pull requests on GitHub, so explore that if you want the details, but the summary would be...



Audio

Fixes around visualisations
Fixes around pause/resume
Fixes around TrueHD crashes
Workaround firmware bug (AMLogic v23) (sidenote: there are many more Android audio fixes that can't be merged into 18.x "Leia" because of old AMLogic workarounds)
Fix to correctly resume audio-only MPEG-TS streams
Correct headphone enumeration (Android)
Build System

Updates for missing includes
Updates for Cmake (Windows)
Updates for device handling and packaging (macOS)
Games

Fixes for launching disc images and .zip files
Fixes for black screen for RGB emulators (Rpi)
Interface/Look-and-feel

Fixes around TextureCache
Fixes for windowing, refresh rate, mode change and others (Android)
Fixes for floating/split keyboard (iOS)
Fix for artist slideshow (Estuary)
Fix media view from addon given content
Playback/Display

Fixed race condition for OnPlaybackStarted
Fixes for MIME type (Android)
Support for DolbyVision streams via addons
Fixes for maximum width and height/vertical-shift (Android)
Fix for scanning in sub-directories
Fix size of EAGL layer on external screen (iOS)
Fix for glTexImage3D (Linux)
Fix for seeking issues
Reset playlist on new file playback
PVR

Fix for multiline episode names
Other/General

Fixed incorrectly formatted region time
Pass JSON serialised path settings to python scrapers
Fix file access on auto-mounted sources
Fix seeking with FileCache lockup
Fix passthrough on USB devices (Android)
Fix crash if profile.xml gets broken
Fix cache forward size on EOF

The nature of point releases is that most of these changes won't be visible to most people unless they address a specific problem you've stumbled across. That said, they're all real bugs, and real fixes, so thanks as always to all who found a bug, took the time to report it and, in some cases, provided a fix.

The full v18.6 changelog can be found in our GitHub milestone.
https://github.com/xbmc/xbmc/compare/18.5-Leia...18.6-Leia


Kodi "Leia" 18.5 Release

In our ongoing mission to bring you the very greatest (and most reliable) media centre software in the world, it's time to let another point release escape into the wild. Usual rules apply: this isn't about features, it's about stability and usability.

As usual, you can find a full summary of closed pull requests on GitHub, but the summary would be...

Interface/Look-and-Feel

Estuary and GUI info fixes, including scrollbar behaviour, icon names, label changes
Add dual support for Artist Slideshow 2.x and 3.x
Fix to always allow 'Black' screen saver
Fix wrong sort order list for music playlists node
Playback/Display

Fixes to external subtitle playback
Fixes to support for archives over UPnP
Fixes to "queue item" and "play next" for STRM files with Plugin URL
Fixes to "hide watched" status for videos
Fixes to resume handling when marking a file as unwatched
PVR

Fixes to EPG database storage, start/stop of PVR service
Fix handling of open modal dialogs
Fixes to commercial skip (EDL) processing
Other/General Fixes

Multiple Android changes around windowing, secure decoder and SDK versions
Multiple iOS changes, including support for iPhone 11 and 7th generation iPad, plus fixes for touch input, overlapping drawing surfaces, sandbox checks, notch support.
MacOS fixes around windowing, where only a portion of the screen was correctly rendered
Log files improvements around verbosity and security
Shoutcast improvements
Various fixes and improvements to add-on settings, package build documentation, build system, advancedsettings.xml, skin/profile changes and many other subsystems


The nature of point releases is that most of these changes won't be visible to most people unless they address a specific problem you'd stumbled across. That said, they're all real bugs, and real fixes, so thanks as always to all who found a bug, took the time to report it and, in some cases, provided a fix.

The full v18.5 changelog can be found in our GitHub milestone.
https://github.com/xbmc/xbmc/compare/18.4-Leia...18.5-Leia


Kodi "Leia" 18.4 Release

Another couple of months have passed since we last pushed out a release, and so, in our ongoing efforts to produce the best media software in the world, it's time to squash another few of those more irritating bugs. Usual rules apply: don't expect any new features, don't think that this will change your life, it won't make you richer or more attractive, but it will hopefully be more stable and usable for people who've been victims of any of these bugs.

So, what have we done? Well, you can find a full summary of closed pull requests here, but the summary would be...

Interface

Fix Missing text when sorting from inside addon
Clear/save focus-history when leaving window with focus on parent folder item
Picture slideshow fixes (Estuary)
Subscribe to controller install events (games)
Fix radio button text length (Estuary)
Fix season/episode formatting for video addons (video)
Don't consider display mode ids constant (Android)
Playback/Display

Fix PlayMedia builtin for playlists (.strm) and "artists" smart playlists (music)
Fix PlayMedia builtin for smart playlists and playlists (music)
FFmpeg: Bump to 4.0.4-Leia-18.4
Load program from stream property without using streaminfo (video)
Fix initialization of AVD3D11VAContext structure (video, Windows)
Fix TS resume point, related to PR16314 (video)
Fixed memory leak, fixed segfault (video, Linux)
Fix PAPlayer to handle passthrough for TrueHD (audio)
PVR

Fix component dependencies
PVRRecordings: Prevent concurrent calls to video database
Other/General fixes

Use first protocol from add-on in add network dialog
Use exact matching for protocol in file+dir factories
Use of absolute paths in combination with hosts in URLs
Fix file times for vfs addons
Fix + sign HTTP folder
Corrections to filesystem CircularCache initialization and termination
Controller fixes
Delete stream details when video info is refreshed
Do not attempt to further resolve plugin paths for failing entries
Revert "fixed: We should always update stream details from player..."


Kodi "Leia" 18.3 Release

Two months have passed since our last bugfix release and already we have a new one ready for consumption. Fancy a few more features? There aren't any, with one teeny-tiny exception. Apparently DTS-HD audio only tracks are a thing and Kodi can now play them like any other music format. That's it. No more features. Seriously.

However, since Kodi 18.3 is a bugfix release, we have a boatload of erm... fixes. In fact, too many to mention. Below is a non-exhaustive list of (mostly) usability fixes.

Estuary
Fixed favourites widget not scrolling properly on 16:10 displays
Fixed API button was not reachable with a mouse on Settings window
Fixed Skin Settings window scrollbar focus
Fixed order of TV Show title and Episode title in Video Info dialog
Added Search button to the side menu in the Video and Music windows
Fixed Wall and Infowall views scroll to bottom on certain aspect-ratios
Fixed broken side menu navigation in the Addon Browser window
PVR
Fixed a Group Manager crash when adding a new group
Fixed EPG UI corruption and/or EPG data not showing with newly added channels
Fixed PVR guide window channel data being overwritten
Music
Added support for DTS-HD audio tracks
Fixed wrong album or artist thumb art being picked from scraper results
The remaining fixes are under the hood and range from addressing nasty memory leaks to DVD playback from HTTPS sources, with a couple of crash and burn events in between. A special thanks to all the users that found a bug, took the time to report it and, in some cases, provided a fix.

The full v18.3 changelog can be found in our GitHub milestone. If you want to read back on what was actually changed in v18 itself, you can find the corresponding articles in the blog posts - Kodi 18, Kodi 18.1 and Kodi 18.2.
https://github.com/xbmc/xbmc/compare/18.2-Leia...18.3-Leia


Kodi "Leia" 18.2 Release

Just when you thought we were all having a rest for Easter, here's some surprise news for you: Kodi "Leia" 18.2 is ready to roll. The sun is shining and the sky is blue here in western Europe, and we're all tied to our keyboards to bring you the latest Kodi loveliness. We're kind like that.

In keeping with the 18.x maintenance release cycle, this is a bug fix release, with no real new functionality. What's worth noting, however, is how we've identified and managed the bugs this time. We've always valued high-quality bug reports, and, for this reason, for 18.x we implemented an issue template and an automated verification system in the GitHub issue tracker. This makes the bug reports more complete, and gives the Kodi developers a better chance to pinpoint problems more accurately and fix them more quickly. The aim is to solve the problem of waiting for proper full debug logs, samples and suchlike, hopefully saving a lot of time and getting issues resolved more quickly. Hopefully, you can see the results of this new process in the 18.x bug fix releases.

For this 18.2 release we are also grateful to have received many code contributions from outside Team Kodi. With this help we were able to fix performance and dependency regressions in our GLES rendering path. Similar fixes were contributed for the AML platform, which really hasn't received much love over the past years.

VAAPI on Intel has gained some corrections for interlaced content that toggled interlaced flags during playback, and therefore caused stutter by reconfiguring the decoder.

Amongst other things, work has continued on Kodi's music experience: database access speed has been optimised as well as improved import functionality. Similarly, there have been fixes and improvements across all aspects of PVR, with a couple of particularly nasty bugs sent on their way.

You can also find a huge number of improvements for the Android platform. Because of the automated Google tests done in the Play store, we were able to track down and resolve a lot of issues revealed by those "drunken monkey" tests.

Beside all the fixes, we have introduced a Codec Factory (Android only) where power users can configure HW-Decoder usage in a fine-grained way. Most box sellers only provide usable codecs for formats which they use to sell content. Other format support tends to be poor, and therefore a configurable heuristic-based codec and video dimensions was added. The settings can be configured by the user in human-readable and writable XML format. More information can be found in the related pull request.

We will continue to work on Leia: an 18.3 release will be drafted once we have important fixes for this release. In the meantime, development on version 19 M* has begun. We will officially announce its new codename shortly. A small spoiler: "May the force be with you - always". But this time we will switch universes (and here's another hint: you might find it on GitHub already if you know where to look...).

The full v18.2 changelog can be found in our GitHub milestone.

See https://github.com/xbmc/xbmc/milestone/125?closed=1


Kodi 18.2 RC1

See https://github.com/xbmc/xbmc/milestone/122?closed=1

Kodi v18.1 Leia RC1

Upcoming bug fix release..
Two weeks have past since the official release of v18.0, and hopefully you all like it as much as we do. A final release always comes with some unexpected bugs or improvements that needed a bit more time. In the months to come we will bring you regular v18 updates that included bug fixes and improvements. In this 18.1 Release Candidate we have included the following changes:

Speed up Player and Playlists operations with JSON-RPC
Define a senseful default value for advanced settings 'updateemptytagsinterval'
Revert edge case crash fix that caused DVDs to be not recognised on Mac OS
Remove "dxvaallowhqscaling" advanced setting to prepare for DXVA improvements in v18.2 for Windows
Linux X11: fix usage of required configuration values
Add date to the log records
Don't react on DPI change event on Win10 >= FCU
Fix Android MediaCodec freeze when early disposing stream
Flush streamplayers if abort is requested which solves waiting too long. Skippingskip DVD screens for example
Fix ListitemAbsolute and ListItemPosition in GUI engine
Ignore very first "server not reachable" notification for PVR servers
Use extended result codes for SQLite
Fix invalid PTS decoder value which should inprove MPEG2 playback on Android devices
update SSL CA trust store
Handle empty vertex buffers in GUIFontTTFGL which caused a hard crash
Reintroduce setting "Close channel OSD after switching channels" for PVR
Fix thread logging on Android which cause issues like gettings frozen on DVD/Bluray playback
Avoid attempt to load music info for smartplaylists
Fix Top 100 Albums regression
RenderCapture: Only query Occlusion if GL lower 1.5
Check current mode if whitelist doesn't match and take correct action
Check if app intent is valid on Android. This fixes a hard crash when trying to open Kodi again
Fix PVR input stream creation for pvr file items only containing a path and no recording/channel tag.
Fixe playing VP9 streams using inputstream addon. It failed because codec extradata is not existant for this stream codec.
Catch an exception while reading or writing a file
Fix logical "or" operation in GUI engine
Check the system capabilities to support sleep states S1/S2/S3/S4 before reporing them as available
Fix crash in PCSX ReARMed with BIOS
Several Estuary cosmetic fixes

The full v18.1 RC1 changelog can be found in our https://github.com/xbmc/xbmc/milestone/121?closed=1


Kodi 18 is here!

<drum roll> ... after another long gestation... the Kodi team is very pleased to announce the immediate availability of Kodi 18.0 "Leia" for all supported platforms (UWP for Windows Store and Xbox is working its way through the system as I type, so will be available shortly...). While we were planning to move more to a "release early, release often" model, this has some significant changes that really needed to be tested and bedded in before we launched it, so it did take a little longer than we'd hoped. It was, though, a worthwhile wait :)

To put it in some kind of context, this version includes:

Approaching 10,000 commits (code chunks changed)
More than 3000 pull-requests (collection of commits that were included in one go)
Nearly 9,000 changed files
Nearly half a million line of code added, and much the same number removed
Over 36 open source developers
A lot of dedicated free time conceiving, designing, developing and testing these changes (and all the infrastructure you see around them, including this web site)
Quite literally many, many cases of beer and wine
We've covered many of the detailed changes in this release in previous blog posts, but here's a quick summary of what you'll find in this new release:

Retroplayer gaming and associated game control support
One of the big features of this release: support for gaming emulators, ROMs and controls. This is a significant topic in its own right, so look out for future posts on this, but suffice it to say at this time that you now have a whole world of retro gaming at your fingertips, all from the same interface as your movies, music and TV shows. For the genuine experience as well, we've also introduced support for joysticks, gamepads, and other platform-specific controls, so the games will work just as was intended.

DRM (Digital Rights Management) support
Early days in many ways, but this opens a whole new world of content for Kodi. Depending on your hardware and licensing, Kodi can now access external DRM handlers and then play subscription content just like any other local media. This is significant in a time when so many people are switching to protected streaming content; there are already several add-ons available that make use of this functionality, and we genuinely hope that we'll see support from other content providers in the future.

Music Library – new ways to explore and enjoy your music collection
Significant improvements including better filtering (media source, artist gender, type etc.); artist sort name; enhanced artwork; faster API access (particularly useful if you're controlling Kodi by remote with the TV off). Creating and using the music library is even smoother than before. If you have never bothered to use the music library, or maybe never even used Kodi as a music player, then we encourage you to try this feature in Leia!

Live TV improvements, including support for new back-ends
Support for RDS (Radio Data System), automatic selection on startup ("boot to live TV/radio", if you like), improved OSD and PVR information, enhanced EPG and PVR actions, and many more. Back end support has been updated across the board, with new support for Zattoo, Teleboy, and Sledovanitv.cz .

Binary addon support and the binary addon repository
While we've actually been using platform-specific binary addons for some time - think PVR addons and screensavers - there's been a lot of work to expand this functionality and move to a more modular architecture as a result. This has effectively halved the main Kodi installer in size, as you now have the option to install some of these functions as you need them instead of them coming pre-bundled. The architecture also now opens the door for other types of pre-compiled binaries, perhaps to provide access to different media sources. The binary repository is currently available for Android, OSX and Windows; Linux users will still have to use the PPA, while iOS and UWP will continue to include the binary add-ons in the installer because of platform limitations.

Android Leanback and voice control
Kodi can now show its library contents on the main Android TV interface, with full voice functionality: unwatched random movies and unlistened-to albums, binge watch suggestions, and more. Voice integration allows you to search for content with Google Assistant, using the same feature for "voice typing" wherever you see the traditional Kodi on-screen keyboard.

Playback improvements (audio and video), including improved Blu-ray support
The video player is core to so much of what Kodi does, and some significant changes have been made to the architecture to ensure we're better able to cope with 4K, 8K, HDR and similar, as well as keeping up with the variety of CODECs out there. Changes have been made to priority, to ensure that video gets the most attention from the CPU/GPU for smoothest-possible playback. Elements have been moved out into binary addons, so components can potentially be updated outside of the main Kodi code base.

We've also improved Blu-ray support in terms of disc detection and metadata, BD-J menu support (subject to Java support on the device), there are updated external interfaces for e.g. MPEG DASH and RTMP input, and there are improvements to 3d playback (including in 2D mode) and various changes to specific CODECs.

On the audio side, there's a wealth of improvements and new support for all types of playback system: ALSA, PulseAudio, OSS, Pi Audio, DirectSound, WASAPI, Darwin, SndIO

"Estuary" skin modifications and changes to the GUI/skinning engine
Many of the other changes listed here have an obvious ripple effect on the Kodi interface, so we've made change to support these: the gaming modules and associated libraries and the PVR changes, for example. We've also updated keyboard layouts for more languages, updated image resources, changed API calls, improved response times with optimisations for e.g. scaling and redrawing.

Revised codebase and build guides
Starting with this release, our build guides are kept up-to-date against the current code base - current, as in (hopefully!) up-to-date against a single pull request or code commit. That means that we no longer need to maintain How-Tos and standalone guides, and you will be able to reliably find a build guide for any point in time, even retrospectively.

Platform Specifics
As a multi-platform application, Kodi inevitably has to be updated in different ways for different operating systems, whether that's simply to keep up or whether it's to unlock new functionality. Android gets API bumps, speech-to-text, SD card support, among other things; BSD gets all-round improved support, especially on the video (VAAPI/VDPAU) side; Linux gets DRM, Mir/Wayland support, numerous video improvements, and build system changes; iOS gets support for iOS 10, improved VDADecoder support, and general improvements on both TVOS and arm64 IOS; and Windows finally gets 64-bit binaries, along with improved UWP compilation, enhancements to image rendering, and another slew of general platform-specific improvements to how we handle libraries and APIs.

... And Other Things
Of course, there have also been a huge number of other changes, some of which will be invisible to very many users. Bluetooth support, CMake build system, visualisations and screensavers, improvements to the JSON-RPC API, improved code stability, performance. and security (as well as general code clean-up in many core areas), remote control changes, web interface changes, logging changes, dependency changes... the list goes on. Do take a look at the change log and detailed commit history (below) if you're really interested in looking behind the curtain!


Kodi v18 Leia RC5

As mentioned in the RC4 release article, a final release was close on the horizon. To that end we hereby present you the last Release Candate (RC5) before we call it a wrap on v18.0. It will not be absolutely perfect but we have to go forward at some point. Don't worry as we will of course continue working on fixing any issue that might surface in the regeular v18 point releases afterwards.

Changes in RC5
Most notable changes to mention in this Release Candidate:

Correctly redact user/password in certain cases
Fix window transparency on Android that might cause grey bars on HDR playback
Prevent crash when resuming audiobook when there's no chapter present
Fix crash&burn by ensuring that Abort of ScriptObserver waits for thread exit
Fix regression from RC4 regarding "don't disable gui rendering when losing focus" on OSX
Workaround double switching of refreshrate because we currently cannot reliably distinguish between 25p and 50i or 29.97p and 60i on playback start
Fix missing All Albums item from music library
Revert change that cause sorting of ANSII characters in library (proper fix will have to be done in v19)
Fix crash on certain language characters when using PVR add-ons
Fix crash on Windows with DVD playback after change in ffmpeg
Fix compatibility with older MySQL databases
Of course there are several more changes which are listed on our github repository found here: RC5 changes.
https://github.com/xbmc/xbmc/milestone/120?closed=1


Kodi v18 Leia RC4 - A new hope

It's the days between Christmas and New Years eve, and some of our developers found the time do squash down some know issues. We hereby present you v18 RC4 that include several fixes we did past two weeks. There's not really anything more to say than wish you all a great new year. As you might have guessed by now v18 will not be released in 2018. There are several reason for this, however we feel we shouldn't rush a release just for the sake of releasing. There's good hope it will be released very early 2019 once we ironed out the remaining issues we feel should be fixed.

To this point the current v18 version has been proven to be quite solid to use as a daily driver for those who were brave enough to try it out. Of course you should still keep in mind it's not a final release yet and that on any upgrade a small glitch could happen as we are still doing rework. Once you decide to give it a try it is highly recommended that you create a backup first.

Changes in RC4 (and RC3)
Most notable changes to mention in this Release Candidate:

Update documentation regarding Python and Skin develoment: Kodi Doxygen
Fix crash on certain music files that contain ID3v2 UFID frame
Do not list non-repo add-ons as "unavailable" in info dialog (the by default included ones)
Fix some interface info labels regarding music
Fix none responsive when minimising on Mac OSX
Fix path for looking up external subtitles
Replace vc140 redis with vc141 which fixes crashes on Windows (user should at least install this once)
Windows DXVA - fixed color values
Fix GUI Notifications rendering
Fix watched items in plugins (contains database upgrade)
Of course there are several more changes which are listed on our github repository found here: RC4 changes.
https://github.com/xbmc/xbmc/milestone/119

Fix crashes by pressing 'x' to stop DVD .iso image when "Player Process Info" is displayed
Screenshot: simplify logic and bail out if no folder is set
Android: remove mpeg4 HD restriction / use dts for unknown pts for mpeg4 (there might be some playback regressions that will be fixed along the way)
Change resolution (if required) on application starts (fixes XBXO resolution issues)
Android: Reset calibrations if GUI limit changes
Android: fix subtitle position problems
Fix resolution whitelist issues on Windows
Extend option to hide spoilers like text or images from the library view
Add support for new iOS devices
Of course there are several more changes which are listed on our github repository found here: RC3 changes.
https://github.com/xbmc/xbmc/milestone/118


Kodi v18 Leia RC2 - A new hope

After two years of hard work by all volunteers, either part of the team or of our great community we can finally say the last steps towards Kodi v18 are being made. In past years many things have changed, either visually or code wise and to be honest i can't even recall most. We as team would certainly like to thank every developer and user who spent time helping us get this far.

To this point the current v18 version has been proven to be quite solid to use as a daily driver for those who were brave enough to try it out. Of course you should still keep in mind it's not a final release yet and that on any upgrade a small glitch could happen as we are still doing rework. Once you decide to give it a try it is highly recommended that you create a backup first.

Changes in RC2
Most notable changes to mention in this Release Candidate:

Update documentation regarding Python and Skin develoment: Kodi Doxygen
Linux powermanagement: change logind detection to also use Dbus
Android: Fix playback for some PVR add-ons
Fix performance issue in PVR recording sub menu by reducing number of resume point update requests
Android: Assign joysticks in order of MRU (last activation)
Fix crash when an add-on did not define a version number
VideoPlayer: fix state of a/v players after switching refresh rate
Add new setting that allows to hide "spoiler" text for TV shows or movies
Of course there are several more changes which are listed on our github repository found here: RC1 changes.
https://github.com/xbmc/xbmc/milestone/115?closed=1


Kodi v18 Leia RC1 - A new hope

After two years of hard work by all volunteers, either part of the team or of our great community we can finally say the last steps towards Kodi v18 are being being made. In past years many things have changed, either visually or code wise and to be honest i can't even recall most. We as team would certainly like to thank every developer and user who spend time helping us get this far.

To this point the current v18 version has been proven to be quite solid to use as a daily driver for those who were brave enough to try it out. Of course you should still keep in mind it's not a final release yet and that on any upgrade a small glitch could happen as we are still doing rework. Once you decide to give it a try it is highly recommended that you create a backup first.

Currently included
To this point in time we’ve done

More than 9386 commits (code chunks changed)
More than 3000 pull-requests (collection of commits that were included in one go)
More than 8638 changed files
More than 503.000 code lines removed
More than 427.000 code lines added
Over 36 opensource developers
A lot of free time developing and testing these changes
Quite likely several cases of beer or wine
A full changelog is nearly impossible to create looking back. As such this release article will only cover the biggest changes. For a more extensive list you can visit our wiki page v18 (Leia) changelog which will be update along the way. From now on all v18 releases will not contain any big new features as we are focussed on bug fixing or improvements only.

https://kodi.wiki/view/Kodi_v18_(Leia)_changelog


Kodi v18 Leia - Beta 5

We hereby present you the fifth and last Beta build of Kodi v18 as we are heading towards the final release. Next step will be Release candidates where our focus will be on solving bugs and possible usability problems. So far it has been proven to be quite solid to use as a daily driver for those who were brave enough to try it out. Of course you should still keep in mind it's not a final release yet and that on any upgrade a small glitch could happen as we are still doing rework. Once you decide to give it a try it is highly recommended that you create a backup first.

Currently included
A full changelog is nearly impossible to create and in this release article we will only cover the basics. For a more extensive list you can visit our wiki page v18 (Leia) changelog which will be update along the way. From now on all v18 releases will not contain any big new features as we are focussed on bug fixing or improvements only.

Most notable changes to mention in Beta 5:

Fix repository connection issues on Windows which affected certain CPU types
Some improvements to Android video playback
Some improvements to OSX resolution switching
Support for Radio Data RDS (RDS) if the PVR backend supports this
Try to find the best matching resolution automatically for refreshrate switching if the user has not made a selection in reolsution whitelist setting
Update Chorus2 webinterface which contains security and general fixes
General code improvements and cleanup

Of course there are several more changes which are listed on our github repository found here: Beta5 changes.
https://github.com/xbmc/xbmc/milestone/116?closed=1


Kodi v18 Leia - Beta 4

We hereby present you the forth Beta build of Kodi v18 as we are heading towards the final release. Since we are now in Beta stage our focus will be on solving bugs and possible usability problems. So far it has been proven to be quite solid to use as a daily driver for those who were brave enough to try it out. Of course you should still keep in mind it's not a final release yet and that on any upgrade a small glitch could happen as we are still doing rework. Once you decide to give it a try it is highly recommended that you create a backup first.

Currently included
A full changelog is nearly impossible to create and in this release article we will only cover the basics. For a more extensive list you can visit our wiki page v18 (Leia) changelog which will be update along the way. From now on all v18 releases will not contain any big new features as we are focussed on bug fixing only.

Most notable changes to mention in Beta 4:

Finally implemented binary repository for Android, OSX and Windows
Further improve controller handling
Fix playback of files in playlists that have mixed content of audio and video
Fix possible crash on exit
Bump NFS library to 3.0
Various other code improvements and cleanups
Of course there are several more changes which are listed on our github repository found here: Beta4 changes.

See https://github.com/xbmc/xbmc/milestone/113?closed=1


Kodi v18 Leia - Beta 3

We hereby present you the third Beta build of Kodi v18 as we are heading towards the final release. Since we are now in Beta stage our focus will be on solving bugs and possible usability problems. So far it has been proven to be quite solid to use as a daily driver for those who were brave enough to try it out. Of course you should still keep in mind it's not a final release yet and that on any upgrade a small glitch could happen as we are still doing rework. Once you decide to give it a try it is highly recommended that you create a backup first.

Currently included
A full changelog is nearly impossible to create and in this release article we will only cover the basics. For a more extensive list you can visit our wiki page v18 (Leia) changelog which will be update along the way. From now on all v18 releases will not contain any big new features as we are focussed on bug fixing only.

Most notable fixes to mention in Beta 3:

Fix slow browsing in library that was a regression added in Beta 2
Updated button maps for controllers that changed Beta 2
Improved playback on Android regarding video and DTS-HD audio
Revert changes for smooth video on Windows that caused issues
Various other fixes regarding video playback
Of course there are several more changes which are listed on our github repository found here: Beta3 changes.

Make sure to also go through our news sections which contain all past announcements regarding the Leia release and some highlights of what it will contain.

Stability and usability is key
In general the whole stability has been improved quite a lot. The times you still get glitches or occasional crashes haven been reduced due to just ripping out not so well coded parts and replaced with a more structured design and standard. Not that the old code was bad however over time new insights were gained and having newer code standards just make it better. Untangling all parts or components and make them behave better next to each other has been one of the biggest efforts done so far.

Current available skins

Due to changes in how Kodi works skins need to be updated for each release. As of this moment we have the following ones have been update by their developers and are readily available from our repository.

Adnoic, Aeon Nox 5, Andromeda, Black Glass Nova, Chroma, Confluence, fTV, Grid, Mimic, Nebula, Omni, Rapier, Sio2, Xperience1080

More will follow at a later point in time when we approach final release.

Python 2 & 3 compatibility will be enforced
Currently, Kodi includes the Python 2.7 interpreter to run addons written in Python programming language. However, Python 3 was released almost 10 years ago and the matter of implementing the Python 3 interpreter in Kodi has been brought up on the Kodi forum several times. Now, thanks to a successful GSOC 2017 project, we have a working Python 3.6 interpreter for Kodi, and on the latest DevCon 2017 in Prague Team Kodi decided that it’s time to move on and migrate Python addon subsystem to Python 3. <--break->There are several reasons for that:

Python 2 End of Life is planned for 2020.

Python 3 is mature enough and more and more Python libraries either convert their codebase to Python 3-compatible or drop Python 2 support completely (Django is the most notable example).

Most current Python books, tutorials and courses are focused on Python 3.

Python 2 is not actively developed. It receives only security patches while Python 3 gets all the cool new features with every minor version.

However, Python 3 is not backward-compatible with the 2nd version so some transition process is required. Currently the plan is the following:

Kodi 19 (M*) will be released with Python 3 interpreter for running Python-based addons.

After the release of Kodi 18 (Leia) only addons that are compatible with both Python 2 and 3 will be accepted to the official addon repository. Also, Python 3-only addons will be accepted to the repositories for Kodi 19 (M*) and above.

Addon developers are highly encouraged to convert their addons to Python 2/3-compatible so that after the release of Kodi 19 (M*) we will have enough addons that work with the new version.

Test builds based on Kodi 18 with the Python 3 interpreter will be provided continuously so addon developers can test their addons for compatibility with Python 3. Test builds for Windows are already available for downloading from here and test builds for Ubuntu can be obtained from this PPA.

One the v18 version has been branched off for final release the nightlies will become Python 3 only while the release builds will still be Python 2.

Writing Python code that is compatible with both 2 and 3 versions is totally possible and the “big” Python world has been doing it for years since the release of Python 3.0. There are a number of tools and best practices developed to simplify this process. Please read this Kodi Wiki article for more information and technical details about the migration process. Also a special Wiki section has been created that will be updated with new information. You can post questions about converting your addon code to Python 3-compatible or share your experience in “Python 3 migration” subforum on the official Kodi forum.

A new main menu item
As some of you have seen a new menu item has appeared on the main menu. We will expand more on what this means in a future article.


The story continues
Although we don’t really have a clear future plan or clear cut goals (except making a great media center) we would welcome any developer who wants to spend time on getting Kodi better in every way. Either improving the core code to newer standards, fixing bugs or implementing a new feature we haven’t thought of. Compared to years ago the code has become better to understand and follow for newcomers to get started. Once we get something written down of certain to reach goals we will certainly share them.

A great improvement has been made on the documentation that explains how to compile and work on the core code for Kodi. We highly recommend to read the article Kodi's GitHub codebase new face and better documentation.


Kodi v18 Leia - Beta 2

We hereby present you the second Beta build of Kodi v18 as we are heading towards the final release. Since we are now in Beta stage our focus will be on solving bugs and possible usability problems. So far it has been proven to be quite solid to use as a daily driver for those who were brave enough to try it out. Of course you should still keep in mind it's not a final release yet and that on any upgrade a small glitch could happen as we are still doing rework. Once you decide to give it a try it is highly recommended that you create a backup first.

Currently included
A full changelog is nearly impossible to create and in this release article we will only cover the basics. For a more extensive list you can visit our wiki page v18 (Leia) changelog which will be update along the way. From now on all v18 releases will not contain any big new features as we are focussed on bugfixing only.

Most notable fixes to mention in Beta 2 are EPG and PVR interface optimisations and Live TV related fixes. Further more there are some improvements regarding Bluray playback and menus. Of course there are several more changes which are listed on our github reposity found here: Beta2 changes.
https://github.com/xbmc/xbmc/milestone/111?closed=1


Kodi v18 Leia - Beta 1

We hereby present you the first Beta build of Kodi v18 as we are heading towards the final release. Since we are now in Beta stage our focus will be on solving bugs and possible usability problems. So far it has been proven to be quite solid to use as a daily driver for those who were brave enough to try it out. Of course you should still keep in mind it's not a final release yet and that on any upgrade a small glitch could happen as we are still doing rework. Once you decide to give it a try it is highly recommended that you create a backup first.

Currently included
A full changelog is nearly impossible to create and in this release article we will only cover the basics. For a more extensive list you can visit our wiki page v18 (Leia) changelog which will be update along the way. This third alpha release contain no big new features as we are focus on bugfixing only.

Make sure to also go through our news sections which contain all past announcements regarding the Leia release and some highlights of what it will contain.

Stability and usability is key
In general the whole stability has been improved quite a lot. The times you still get glitches or occasional crashes haven been reduced due to just ripping out not so well coded parts and replaced with a more structured design and standard. Not that the old code was bad however over time new insights were gained and having newer code standards just make it better. Untangling all parts or components and make them behave better next to each other has been one of the biggest efforts done so far.

Current available skins

Due to changes in how Kodi works skins need to be updated for each release. As of this moment we have the following ones have been update by their developers and are readily available from our repository.

Adnoic, Aeon Nox 5, Andromeda, Black Glass Nova, Chroma, Confluence, fTV, Grid, Mimic, Nebula, Omni, Rapier, Sio2, Xperience1080

More will follow at a later point in time when we approach final release.

The wiki pages
One of the best sources of information next to our forum for asking question and finding answers is the Kodi wiki pages. With each release certain aspects of the software change and this of course needs to be reflected on the official wiki pages. Several team members and regular users spend quite some time updating and tweaking these pages to become a helpfull one stop place for all information.



The V18 Lei t-shirt
Inspired by the galaxy far, far away theme, our resident artist Sam went above and beyond and designed perhaps the coolest Kodi announce video of all time.


We loved his work so much that we're modeling the Kodi 18 shirt after it along with more art to come. Here it is, our newest, coolest shirt: K-18L

Kodistore

The story continues
Although we don’t really have a clear future plan or clear cut goals (except making a great media center) we would welcome any developer who wants to spend time on getting Kodi better in every way. Either improving the core code to newer standards, fixing bugs or implementing a new feature we haven’t thought of. Compared to years ago the code has become better to understand and follow for newcomers to get started. Once we get something written down of certain to reach goals we will certainly share them.

A great improvement has been made on the documentation that explains how to compile and work on the core code for Kodi. We highly recommend to read the article Kodi's GitHub codebase new face and better documentation.



Release time

Since we now started the Beta cycle a final release will be on the near horizon. When the final release will actually be is yet unknown as it all depends on the stability now more people will start using the v18 builds.

That’s about it for now and we’ll go back at improving this upcoming v18 release. Should you wish to give it a try a new version is readily available each day as well as nightly version. We can certainly recommend trying it out however take in mind that it’s not fully production and living room ready yet (take a backup). So far a guestimate of several tens of thousands users already use it so it can’t be that bad can it. You can get it from the download page clicking on the platform of choice and hitting the “pre release” tab. For Android and Windows we have an easy to use download add-on which you can find in our repository.

Go to the Official download page and choose the platform of choice and you will find these builds under the pre release tab.

If you do appreciate our work feel free to give a small donation so we can continue our effort. Just find the big "Donate" button at the top of the website.

May the force be with you…..

https://kodi.wiki/view/Kodi_v18_(Leia)_changelog


Kodi v18 Leia - Alpha 3

We hereby present you the third and last alpha build of Kodi v18 as we are going forward entering beta stage. This release is a continuation of the previous two with our continous focus on solving bugs and usability problems. So far it has proved to be quite solid to use as a daily driver for those who were brave enough to try it out. Of course you should still keep in mind it's not a final release yet and that on any upgrade a small glitch could happen as we are still doing rework. Once you decide to give it a try it is highly recommended that you create a backup first.

Currently included
A full changelog is nearly impossible to create and in this release article we will only cover the basics. For a more extensive list you can visit our wiki page v18 (Leia) changelog which will be update along the way. This third alpha release contain no big new features as we are focus on bugfixing only.

Make sure to also go through our news sections which contain all past announcements regarding the Leia release and some highlights of what it will contain.

Stability and usability is key
In general the whole stability has been improved quite a lot. The times you still get glitches or occasional crashes haven been reduced due to just ripping out not so well coded parts and replaced with a more structured design and standard. Not that the old code was bad however over time new insights were gained and having newer code standards just make it better. Untangling all parts or components and make them behave better next to each other has been one of the biggest efforts done so far.

Current available skins

Due to changes in how Kodi works skins need to be updated for each release. As of this moment we have the following ones have been update by their developers and are readily available from our repository.

Adnoic, Aeon Nox 5, Andromeda, Black Glass Nova, Chroma, Confluence, fTV, Grid, Mimic, Nebula, Omni, Rapier, Sio2, Xperience1080

More will follow at a later point in time when we approach final release.

The story continues
Although we don’t really have a clear future plan or clear cut goals (except making a great media center) we would welcome any developer who wants to spend time on getting Kodi better in every way. Either improving the core code to newer standards, fixing bugs or implementing a new feature we haven’t thought of. Compared to years ago the code has become better to understand and follow for newcomers to get started. Once we get something written down of certain to reach goals we will certainly share them.

A great improvement has been made on the documentation that explains how to compile and work on the core code for Kodi. We highly recommend to read the article Kodi's GitHub codebase new face and better documentation.

Release time

You might also wonder when we will actually release this as a final version? Currently we don't really have a set time however it should at least be somewhere this year so. There's still enough room left for improvements however we could change our minds at any point in time and just call it ready enough to start the release cycle. In short we can't say or promise anything. For now we will start doing the Alpa release on a regular bases to bring further balance to the force.

That’s about it for now and we’ll go back at improving this upcoming v18 release. Should you wish to give it a try a new version is readily available each day as well as nightly version. We can certainly recommend trying it out however take in mind that it’s not fully production and living room ready yet (take a backup). So far a guestimate of several tens of thousands users already use it so it can’t be that bad can it. You can get it from the download page clicking on the platform of choice and hitting the “pre release” tab. For Android and Windows we have an easy to use download add-on which you can find in our repository.


Kodi v18 Leia - Alpha 2

We have been relatively quiet for a while and several months have past since the first pre-release Alpha build. Today we present you the second official Alpha build in this pre-release trilogy. It is a continuation of the first one which was released beginning of March and contains our continous battle against the dark side that consist of bugs and usability problems.

As this point we feel there's a healthy balance to the force (at least that’s what I personally feel) and we are plotting our course towards beta which should show up after the last of the alpha trilogy pretty soon. A lot of Team Jedi and also regular users are running the so called nightlies builds and it’s getting rock solid to use. Of course you should still keep in mind that on any upgrade a small glitch could happen as we are still doing rework. Once you decide to give it a try it is highly recommended that you create a beackup first.

Currently included
A full changelog is nearly impossible to create and in this release article we will only cover the basics. For a more extensive list you can visit our wiki page v18 (Leia) changelog which will be update along the way.

Stability and usability is key
In general the whole stability has been improved quite a lot. The times you still get glitches or occasional crashes haven been reduced due to just ripping out not so well coded parts and replaced with a more structured design and standard. Not that the old code was bad however over time new insights were gained and having newer code standards just make it better. Untangling all parts or components and make them behave better next to each other has been one of the biggest efforts done so far.

Music library

Music section also gained lots of improvement for those who cares a lot about having a clean music library. Going through the code and scanning options a better understanding was gained on the past intentions and redone in a more structured way. The same accounts in a smaller part for video library although that was in a better maintained state. What is new however in v18 is that similar to music we can now also use the embedded tags and fill the library based on that instead of using file names. For now this has been disabled by default as there’s simply a lack of really well defined standard and proper easy to use video tagging software. We hope with Kodi now gaining this ability a gained interest will make these available.

Live TV

Next part is the great feature of Kodi to use it as your Live TV and recording front-end. It’s one of the less well known features as it requires certain knowledge and thinkering to set this up however once it works you’ll love it. To be able to use this you’ll need some extra hardware like a USB tuner or a network tuner like HDHomerun to get the cable or ether signal converted to a video stream. This in combination with one of the PVR server software options like VNSI or TVHeadend (more options are available) you instantly gain a very pleasant TV experience. What has been done over time is improving the usability and stability of this component and trying to make it a great replacement for your normal cable/ether set top box. A starting guide can be found here: Live TV and PVR/DVR Setup Guide



Windows and UWP

For Windows specific several big things happened. First of all we got added as 32-bit Bridge application to Windows store which makes it easier for new users to install Kodi and receive updates. A simultaneous action was converting Kodi to a full 64-bit application which took quite some effort. A more detailed story can be read here: Windows 64-bit is here

Now that was out of the way a long lived dream of quite a few became an option again. Getting Kodi running back on a XBOX like where it all started more than 15 years ago. Since 27 December 2017 we released Kodi once again for the XBOX (One) and is available from the Store. A more detailed story can be read here: Kodi for XBOX One

There have been several improvements done for XBOX since the first alpa and by now it's also possible to change resolution and SMBv2/3 also work. However for this you do need to enable the SMBv2/3 add-on in add-on manager under VFS add-ons.



Android

Regarding Android we just continued to do what we started some years ago and that was stripping all custom written code and simply following the official Android standards. When XBMC back then became available for Android a lot of specific code was written to get it running on those low powered devices and we had more capabilities than any other application back then. Over time stock Android improved a lot and basically all what we had custom made was becoming readily available to be used. At that point we started dropping old stuff and just applied the standards which reduced support burden for the developers. Now all that was done we could start looking at new features and from that we gained the Leanback search integration on Android TV that shows Kodi content on Android TV itself. We now also include Google Assistant out of the box so theoretically you don’t have to pick up the remote anymore. To be honest it’s still uncomfortable and weird talking to your TV giving it commands. For Android TV Oreo there’s a whole new interface which includes the option to fill so called Channels that shows specific content from your app. We can proudly say that Kodi is actually one of the first applications that actually has this integrated. With the great hidden Kodi feature called Smartplaylists you can now populate the Android TV screen with content you want. For the touch enabled devices we can also say this has improved quite a lot as well make it feel more natural.


Linux

Linux gained some great things as well which might not mean a lot for regular users though. For our Google Summer of Code we had a project integrating Wayland display server protocol (again) to our code base which is meant to be the successor of X11 Window System. Since Linux is also quite divided on display drivers we had quite a lot of code implementations getting Kodi running on the variety of devices out there. To reduce the maintenance burden of this code a general path was chosen and for GBM (Generic Buffer Manager) and V4L2 (Video for Linux). With this only a small part of the initial code is needed to get devices running and from this newer devices would just run out-of-the-box once the Linux kernel supports these.

Retroplayer and input manager

Retroplayer together with input manager makes controlling Kodi using various remotes or controllers much better and a plug and play experience. Not having to thinker finding the correct configurations is something that we all would like and hopefully this achieves this.

Video Player

Now comes on of the biggest changes over past year. The video playback which is of course where Kodi shines. Once designed for the old XBOX and old video standards there wasn’t really taken lot in account with future standards and the massive increasement of video resolution and new codecs. With future in mind work started to redesign this section and to split it from into its own component to not be hindered with whatever happens in the user interface or other parts. Making the sure video gets the highest CPU/GPU priority over anything else happening makes sure you don’t get stuttering video or audio when navigating. This sounds so obvious to do however this wasn’t done or even possible in the past. Parallel to that, parts are reworked to be a lot more efficient and need way less CPU while gaining quality. Higher resolutions like 4K and 8K are also kept in mind next to HDR and new video codecs once they become available.

DRM (Digital Rights Management)

With the work above being done in the video player a possibility came up to also allow something that opens Kodi up for using it in combination with DRM protected content. These days it’s quite common for content owners and providers to protect their content with encryption. With v18 we added the ability to also play this content as it was actually intended by the DRM system. Depending on the used hardware and included license you can now playback this content which usually also comes with a subscription service. Instead of the sometimes clunky apps a possibility would be to just use the trusted Kodi environment to watch what they have to offer. There are already several add-ons available from our repository that already use this capability and we certainly hope more will follow and that content providers will make their service available as official add-on.



As mentioned before here’s a lot more done that mentioned above, however the list would become quite huge and maybe not that clear for the regular user. A more extensive overview can be found at Kodi v18 (Leia) changelog which is updated when changes are made.

Current available skins

Due to changes in how Kodi works skins need to be updated for each release. As of this moment we have the following ones have been update by their developers and are readily available from our repository.

Adnoic, Aeon Nox 5, Andromeda, Black Glass Nova, Chroma, Confluence, fTV, Grid, Mimic, Nebula, Omni, Rapier, Sio2, Xperience1080

More will follow at a later point in time when we approach final release.

The story continues
Although we don’t rely have a clear future plan or clear cut goals we would welcome any developer who wants to spend time on getting Kodi better in every way. Either improving the core code to newer standards, fixing bugs or implementing a new feature we haven’t thought of. Compared to years ago the code has become better to understand and follow for newcomers to get started. Once we get something written down of certain to reach goals we will certainly share them.

Release time

You might also wonder when we will actually release this as a final version? Currently we don't really have a set time however it should at least be somewhere this year so. There's still enough room left for improvements however we could change our minds at any point in time and just call it ready enough to start the release cycle. In short we can't say or promise anything. For now we will start doing the Alpa release on a regular bases to bring further balance to the force.

That’s about it for now and we’ll go back at improving this upcoming v18 release. Should you wish to give it a try a new version is readily available each day as well as nightly version. We can certainly recommend trying it out however take in mind that it’s not fully production and living room ready yet (take a backup). So far a guestimate of several tens of thousands users already use it so it can’t be that bad can it. You can get it from the download page clicking on the platform of choice and hitting the “pre release” tab. For Android and Windows we have an easy to use download add-on which you can find in our repository.

Go to the Official download page and choose the platform of choice and yoiu will find these builds under the pre release tab.

If you do appreciate our work feel free to give a small donation so we can continue our effort. Just find the big "Donate" button at the top of the website.

May the force be with you…..


Kodi v18 Leia - Alpha 1

A new hope dawns and it is finally time to start heading towards a final release. Today we are happy to announce that we are bringing you the first official pre-release Alpha build to a galaxy near you.

Around November 2017 the team decided that v17 Krypton was mature enough to start with the release steps and as such it was branched off from our main development tree. This basically means it received its own place in our development repository and would only receive bug fixes and small improvements. This is also the moment that frees up the possibility for several core developers to start another cleanup and improvement spree that was also done when just starting with v17. This usually entails to take a more evasive steps on cleaning up code and less taking in account that certain parts will be broken for a certain time. Having a good foundation to build on is key in anything and that also includes a software application.

It’s hard to renovate a home while people are constantly using it and it’s easier to just move them to a neighbouring home while parts are being torn down and being rebuild.
Maybe this is a simple analogy however it kinda fits. Another one is replacing the wheels and engine of a car while you’re doing 120km/h on the freeway. Better pull it aside and do it properly and give the driver a spare car that still works fine although it's not so fancy driving yet.

In the past we mentioned doing RERO (Release Early Release Often) at times and to be honest we didn’t really got to that part so far. Only the bugfix versions of the final builds followed this to just make fixes available as soon as we saw fit. For a massive application like Kodi with many platforms and components a RERO approach is quite demanding on all people involved and perhaps it wouldn’t really make sense to do so in current state we are in. We do see this improving by the day so we are on the right track. At current time v17 is already a year old (with 17.6 bugfix past november) however it really just works fine across the board and should keep working for a long time. As we continued the work with current v18 Leia it kind of became apparent that the current workflow we are in works very very well. A healthy balance to the force (at least that’s what i personally feel) is currently active between cleanup, features and fixing regressions. A lot of Team Jedi and also regular users are running these nightlies builds and it’s getting rock solid to use. Of course you should still keep in mind that on any upgrade a small glitch could happen as we are still doing rework. Having a semi recent backup is certainly always a good idea.



Currently included
Now we got that part covered here’s what actually happened over the past year.

To this point in time we’ve done

More than 6140 (code chunks changed)
More than 1911 pull-requests (collection of commits that were included in one go)
More than 7776 changed files
More than 350.000 code lines removed
More than 397.000 code lines added
Over 35 opensource developers
A lot of free time developing and testing these changes
Quite likely several cases of beer or wine
So that’s quite a lot of work done by these volunteer developers and people these changes. Hopefully once you start upgrading the experience you have will be great and appreciate the work being done.

A full changelog is nearly impossible to create and in this release article we will only cover the basics. For a more extensive list you can visit our wiki page v18 (Leia) changelog which will be update along the way.

Stability and usability is key
In general the whole stability has been improved quite a lot. The times you still get glitches or occasional crashes haven been reduced due to just ripping out not so well coded parts and replaced with a more structured design and standard. Not that the old code was bad however over time new insights were gained and having newer code standards just make it better. Untangling all parts or components and make them behave better next to each other has been one of the biggest efforts done so far.

Music library

Music section also gained lots of improvement for those who cares a lot about having a clean music library. Going through the code and scanning options a better understanding was gained on the past intentions and redone in a more structured way. The same accounts in a smaller part for video library although that was in a better maintained state. What is new however in v18 is that similar to music we can now also use the embedded tags and fill the library based on that instead of using file names. For now this has been disabled by default as there’s simply a lack of really well defined standard and proper easy to use video tagging software. We hope with Kodi now gaining this ability a gained interest will make these available.

Live TV

Next part is the great feature of Kodi to use it as your Live TV and recording front-end. It’s one of the less well known features as it requires certain knowledge and thinkering to set this up however once it works you’ll love it. To be able to use this you’ll need some extra hardware like a USB tuner or a network tuner like HDHomerun to get the cable or ether signal converted to a video stream. This in combination with one of the PVR server software options like VNSI or TVHeadend (more options are available) you instantly gain a very pleasant TV experience. What has been done over time is improving the usability and stability of this component and trying to make it a great replacement for your normal cable/ether set top box. A starting guide can be found here: Live TV and PVR/DVR Setup Guide



Windows and UWP

For Windows specific several big things happened. First of all we got added as 32-bit Bridge application to Windows store which makes it easier for new users to install Kodi and receive updates. A simultaneous action was converting Kodi to a full 64-bit application which took quite some effort. A more detailed story can be read here: Windows 64-bit is here

Now that was out of the way a long lived dream of quite a few became an option again. Getting Kodi running back on a XBOX like where it all started more than 15 years ago. Since 27 December 2017 we released Kodi once again for the XBOX (One) and is available from the Store. A more detailed story can be read here: Kodi for XBOX One



Android

Regarding Android we just continued to do what we started some years ago and that was stripping all custom written code and simply following the official Android standards. When XBMC back then became available for Android a lot of specific code was written to get it running on those low powered devices and we had more capabilities than any other application back then. Over time stock Android improved a lot and basically all what we had custom made was becoming readily available to be used. At that point we started dropping old stuff and just applied the standards which reduced support burden for the developers. Now all that was done we could start looking at new features and from that we gained the Leanback search integration on Android TV that shows Kodi content on Android TV itself. We now also include Google Assistant out of the box so theoretically you don’t have to pick up the remote anymore. To be honest it’s still uncomfortable and weird talking to your TV giving it commands. For Android TV Oreo there’s a whole new interface which includes the option to fill so called Channels that shows specific content from your app. We can proudly say that Kodi is actually one of the first applications that actually has this integrated. With the great hidden Kodi feature called Smartplaylists you can now populate the Android TV screen with content you want. For the touch enabled devices we can also say this has improved quite a lot as well make it feel more natural.


Linux

Linux gained some great things as well which might not mean a lot for regular users though. For our Google Summer of Code we had a project integrating Wayland display server protocol (again) to our code base which is meant to be the successor of X11 Window System. Since Linux is also quite divided on display drivers we had quite a lot of code implementations getting Kodi running on the variety of devices out there. To reduce the maintenance burden of this code a general path was chosen and for GBM (Generic Buffer Manager) and V4L2 (Video for Linux). With this only a small part of the initial code is needed to get devices running and from this newer devices would just run out-of-the-box once the Linux kernel supports these.

Retroplayer and input manager

Retroplayer together with input manager makes controlling Kodi using various remotes or controllers much better and a plug and play experience. Not having to thinker finding the correct configurations is something that we all would like and hopefully this achieves this.

Video Player

Now comes on of the biggest changes over past year. The video playback which is of course where Kodi shines. Once designed for the old XBOX and old video standards there wasn’t really taken lot in account with future standards and the massive increasement of video resolution and new codecs. With future in mind work started to redesign this section and to split it from into its own component to not be hindered with whatever happens in the user interface or other parts. Making the sure video gets the highest CPU/GPU priority over anything else happening makes sure you don’t get stuttering video or audio when navigating. This sounds so obvious to do however this wasn’t done or even possible in the past. Parallel to that, parts are reworked to be a lot more efficient and need way less CPU while gaining quality. Higher resolutions like 4K and 8K are also kept in mind next to HDR and new video codecs once they become available.

DRM (Digital Rights Management)

With the work above being done in the video player a possibility came up to also allow something that opens Kodi up for using it in combination with DRM protected content. These days it’s quite common for content owners and providers to protect their content with encryption. With v18 we added the ability to also play this content as it was actually intended by the DRM system. Depending on the used hardware and included license you can now playback this content which usually also comes with a subscription service. Instead of the sometimes clunky apps a possibility would be to just use the trusted Kodi environment to watch what they have to offer. There are already several add-ons available from our repository that already use this capability and we certainly hope more will follow and that content providers will make their service available as official add-on.



As mentioned before here’s a lot more done that mentioned above, however the list would become quite huge and maybe not that clear for the regular user. A more extensive overview can be found at Kodi v18 (Leia) changelog which is updated when changes are made.

Current available skins

Due to changes in how Kodi works skins need to be updated for each release. As of this moment we have the following ones have been update by their developers and are readily available from our repository.

Adnoic, Aeon Nox 5, Confluence, fTV, Grid, Mimic, Omni, Rapier, Sio2, Xperience1080

More will follow at a later point in time when we approach final release.

The story continues
Although we don’t rely have a clear future plan or clear cut goals we would welcome any developer who wants to spend time on getting Kodi better in every way. Either improving the core code to newer standards, fixing bugs or implementing a new feature we haven’t thought of. Compared to years ago the code has become better to understand and follow for newcomers to get started. Once we get something written down of certain to reach goals we will certainly share them.

Release time

You might also wonder when we will actually release this as a final version? Currently we don't really have a set time however it should at least be somewhere this year so. There's still enough room left for improvements however we could change our minds at any point in time and just call it ready enough to start the release cycle. In short we can't say or promise anything. For now we will start doing the Alpa release on a regular bases to bring further balance to the force.

That’s about it for now and we’ll go back at improving this upcoming v18 release. Should you wish to give it a try a new version is readily available each day as well as nightly version. We can certainly recommend trying it out however take in mind that it’s not fully production and living room ready yet (take a backup). So far a guestimate of several tens of thousands users already use it so it can’t be that bad can it. You can get it from the download page clicking on the platform of choice and hitting the “pre release” tab. For Android and Windows we have an easy to use download add-on which you can find in our repository.

https://kodi.wiki/view/Kodi_v18_(Leia)_changelog


Kodi v17.6 final: The very last

We are happy and sad at same time to announce that this will be the last v17.6 release. When we say very last this of course only means for the v17 "Krypton" series as we are steadily heading towards the new v18 series called "Leia". For about a year already our developers have been working on the upcoming v18 release and have been backporting all fixes we deemed safe enough to v17 series. However with all good things there has to come a time to say enough is enough and that moment has come. From our point of view "Krypton" has been a great release and our group has spend a lot of time improving it since it's initial release on 5 February 2017. It has also been one of the series where we did things a bit different with continues nightly versions for testing and quite a lot point releases with only minor fixes just because we could.

We are certainly excited about our upcoming v18 on which we will start reporting at regular basis quite soon but until that time here's the v17.6 "Krypton" version for daily use. We recommend every one to upgrade to this version once it's available for their platform to have the best experience possible. If you want to know what has changed you can browse the list below.

Fixes done in this release:

Fix possible crash in crontroller dialog
Update standard scrapers to lastest version available on release
Fix possible connection issues with internal webserver
Fix crash when peripheral joystick add-on is disabled


Kodi v17.5 final: Another bunch of fixes

It has been a while since we released 17.4 release which fixed several issues. Now the time has come to do another named 17.5 where we tackled several more issues that were identified. Although we already moved on with development towards v18 we do take the time to fix issues for the current release when we can. We recommend every one to upgrade to this version once it's available for their platform to have the best experience possible. If you want to know what has changed you can browse the list below.

Fixes done in this release:

Joysticks: Fix accelerometers preventing screensaver
More robust way of handling audio output on variety of Android devices
Fix playback of DVD file over network on Linux
Update to FFmpeg 3.1.11
Fix up and down buttons on ir remotes with macOS High Sierra
Added latest apple devices to allow retina support
Fix not being able to add content manually to videolibrary
Fix power message handling for CEC
Fix jumping timeline while switching channel groups in Guide window


Kodi v17.4 final: Just a bunch of fixes

It has been a while since we released 17.3 release which fixed several issues. Now the time has come to do another named 17.4 where we tackled several more issues that were identified. Although we already moved on with development towards v18 we do take the time to fix issues for the current release when we can. We recommend every one to upgrade to this version once it's available for their platform to have the best experience possible. If you want to know what has changed you can browse the list below.

Fixes done in this release:

Potentially fix crashing on Windows due to an issue in Python
Potentially fix crashing on Windows when enabling zeroconf
Fix sporadic crash on Windows when installing or updating add-ons
Fix issue for users with reverse proxies attempting to forward websockets.
Fix possible issue if Linux distro uses system ffmpeg and cause black screen with 10-bit H.265
Properly throttle scraping music information online to prevent overloading the provider
Fix native keyboard on iOS 11
Fix potential crash on Android O loading App icons
Fix non showing Kodi banner on Android O
Fix potential crash on Android with certain keymaps
Fix wrong detection of VP6 and VP8 videocodec on Android
Update FFmpeg to 3.1.9
Set hard requirement to use FFmpeg 3.1.x only
Fix for Hangup when viewing recording and pressing next/previous
Fix merged scraped album type and label correctly with that derived from tags from music files
Fix possible crash on Linux when using ALSA
Save skin settings immediatly after they have changed instead of only on shutdown
What else is new?

In the bugfix releases we never include any new features. They are as feature complete as the initial version with the difference is they contain stability and usability fixes. If you are curious you can read up on all the v17 changes here: Kodi v17.0 “Krypton”
https://kodi.tv/kodi17


Kodi v17.4 RC1: Just a bunch of fixes

It has been a while since we released 17.3 release where we fixed several issues. Now the time has come to do another where we tackled several more issues that were identified. Although we already moved on with development towards v18 we do take the time to fix issues for the current release when we can. To give these fixes a proper test run before we call it final we first want to make this release candidate available for the wider audience who might be facing some of these issues we have fixed. Just browse the list below and give it a try.

Fixes done in this release:

Potentially fix crashing on Windows due to an issue in Python
Potentially fix crashing on Windows when enabling zeroconf
Fix sporadic crash on Windows when installing or updating add-ons
Fix issue for users with reverse proxies attempting to forward websockets.
Fix possible issue if Linux distro uses system ffmpeg and cause black screen with 10-bit H.265
Properly throttle scraping music information online to prevent overloading the provider
Fix native keyboard on iOS 11
Fix potential crash on Android O loading App icons
Fix non showing Kodi banner on Android O
Fix potential crash on Android with certain keymaps
Fix wrong detection of VP6 and VP8 videocodec on Android
Update FFmpeg to 3.1.9
Set hard requirement to use FFmpeg 3.1.x only
Fix for Hangup when viewing recording and pressing next/previous
Fix merge scraped album type and label correctly with that derived from tags from music files
What else is new?

In the bugfix releases we never include any new features. They are as feature complete as the initial version with the difference is they contain stability and usability fixes. If you are curious you can read up on all the v17 changes here: https://kodi.tv/kodi17



Kodi v17.3: A minor bug fix and security release

Sorry for this quick bump to v17.3 however we deemed it necessary. In the previous v17.2 we had a slight issue due to packaging certain binary add-ons like PVR, visualisation and Inputstream. Sadly we only uncovered this too late after release. Additionally on the older distros like Ubuntu 14.04 in combination with the available GCC 4.8 compiler an issue surfaced which we had to fix as well. This v17.3 release fixed both these issues and should be completely working again including the missing add-ons.

Fixes done in this release:

Fixed missing binary add-ons on release time
Fixed crash on older distros like Ubuntu 14.04 with GCC 4.8 compiler
From previous v17.2 release:

Fix selection after channelgroup switching in PVR guide window
Fix handling of gaps that caused eradic behaviour in EPG grid
Allow backing out of fullscreen pictures by mapping longpress guesture
Quick fix for wake up command not being called in PVR power management
Use alternative method to check if platform updates have been installed on Windows
Set the minimum version in the code which is currently OSX 10.8
Fix possible security flaw which could abused .zip files which try to traverse to a parent directory
Use the correct ttc font from the video file for subtitles on Windows
Detect and delete zero-byte database files which causes crashes
Security

You may have read in the news that malicious subtitle zip files could potentionally infect and harm your media player including Kodi. When Check Point researchers uncovered this flaw they contacted us up front to let us know about this flaw. Our developers fixed this secuity gap and have added the fix to this v17.2 release. As such we highly encourage all users to install this latest version! Any previous Kodi version will not get any security patch. We have began the roll out of this version and Android Play Store as well as Windows Store have this update pending and will roll out as soon as possible. Please be patient if you are using these store versions. Our official download page of course has the regular install files available for the supported platforms.

To be clear this possible vunrability is only present when you first enable a subtitle dowload add-on and then actually download zipped subtitles. Any subtitles that you already have as text file, are embedded in the video stream or are included with you DVD or Blurays are safe.

What else is new?

In the bugfix releases we never include any new features. They are as feature complete as the initial version with the diference is they contain stability and usability fixes. If you are curious you can read up on all the v17 changes here:
https://kodi.tv/kodi17


Kodi v17.2: A minor bug fix and security release

We're happy to present you this small bugfix release for the v17 “Krypton” range which contains our continuous effort to further improve the v17 range. This release consist of several fixes on top of the v17 and v17.1 release to further improve stability and usablity. Additionally this also inclused a security patch regarding subtitle zip files. We sure would like to thank every one involved with either development, testing or simply helping out others with answering their questions.

Fixes done in this release:

Fix selection after channelgroup switching in PVR guide window
Fix handling of gaps that caused eradic behaviour in EPG grid
Allow backing out of fullscreen pictures by mapping longpress guesture
Quick fix for wake up command not being called in PVR power management
Use alternative method to check if platform updates have been installed on Windows
Set the minimum version in the code which is currently OSX 10.8
Fix possible security flaw which could abused .zip files which try to traverse to a parent directory
Use the correct ttc font from the video file for subtitles on Windows
Detect and delete zero-byte database files which causes crashes
Security

You may have read in the news that malicious subtitle zip files could potentionally infect and harm your media player including Kodi. When Check Point researchers uncovered this flaw they contact us up front to less us know about this flaw. Our developers fixed this secuity gap and have added the fix to this v17.2 release. As such we highly encourage all users to install this latest version! Any previous Kodi version will not get any security patch. We have began the roll out of this version and Android Play Store as well as Windows Store have this update pending and will roll out as soon as possible. Please be patient if you are using these store versions. Our official download page of course has the regular install files available for the supported platforms.

What else is new?

In the bugfix releases we never include any new features. They are as feature complete as the initial version with the diference is they contain stability and usability fixes. If you are curious you can read up on all the v17 changes here:
https://kodi.tv/kodi17


Kodi v17.1 “Krypton”
21 Mar

This is the bugfix release for v17.1 “Krypton” which contains our continuous effort to further improve the v17 release. Our team tried to tackle as much of the reported problems as possible with the limited resources we have. We do want to note that since we are just a small team some of the reported bugs might not get fixed due to lack of developers or time. As such we would certainly welcome any developer who has the ability to help us out to try and fix the bugs he or she encounters and submit it to our code base for review. We sure would like to thank every one involved with either development, testing or simply helping out others with answering their questions.

Fixes done in this release:

Update Estuary and Estouchy with some bugfixes and improvements
Fix EDL skipping
Fix slow song smartplaylist
Several PVR fixes
Update Chorus webinterface
Fix addons not being marked broken when they are updated with broken flag
Add limiter on random songs which should prevent large memory usage on big libraries
Improve keyboard mapping during button mapping
Improve analog stick handling
Improve plugin performance when building the content list
Include RTMP inputstream add-on for Windows
Don’t close subtitle stream when switching audio
Fix replaygain for music files
Fix controllers buttons on Android
Fix music cleanup hanging on large MySQL music database
Fix use of SMB on Android on new installs
Fix possible Kodi upgrade migration hang during add-on update process
Add check in Windows installer for Service Packs and updates that Kodi needs to operate
Don’t try to read tags from internet audio streams
Add setting to disable controller rumble on notifications
A full list can be found
https://github.com/xbmc/xbmc/milestone/99?closed=1
https://github.com/xbmc/xbmc/milestone/101?closed=1

What’s new?
You can read up on all the v17 changes here:
https://kodi.tv/kodi17/


Kodi v17.1 “Krypton” Release Candidate 1
23 Feb

This is the Release Candidate for our upcoming bugfix release v17.1 “Krypton” which contains our continuous effort to further improve the v17 release. Our team will certainly try to tackle as much of the reported problems as possible with the limited resources we have. We do want to note that since we are just a small team some of the reported bugs might not get fixed due to lack of developers or time. As such we would certainly welcome any developer who has the ability to help us out to try and fix the bugs he or she encounters and submit it to our code base for review. We sure would like to thank every one involved with either development, testing or simply helping out others with answering their questions.

Fixes done in this release candidate:

• Update Estuary and Estouchy with some bugfixes and improvements
• Fix EDL skipping
• Fix slow song smartplaylist
• Several PVR fixes
• Update Chorus webinterface
• Fix addons not being marked broken when they are updated with broken flag
• Add limiter on random songs which should prevent large memory usage on big libraries
• Improve keyboard mapping during button mapping
• Improve analog stick handling
• Improve plugin performance when building the content list
• Include RTMP inputstream add-on for Windows

A full list can be found here
https://github.com/xbmc/xbmc/milestone/99?closed=1


Kodi 17
05 Feb

Team Kodi are very happy to announce the immediate availability of Kodi 17.0 (Krypton) for Windows, Android, MacOS and iOS. Krypton brings updated default user interfaces, better organisation of settings, and many under-the-hood changes on VideoPlayer, Music Library, PVR, audio on Android, and thousands of small bugfixes and improvements to stability. Note: Kodi 17 downloads will be available in our Ubuntu PPA soon, so stay tuned for updates!

New look

Kodi’s user interfaces receive a major revision in Kodi 17.0. The new default skin Estuary has been specially designed as a 10-foot interface, while touchscreen devices have a new touch-enabled skin called Estouchy. To complete the overhaul we are now shipping Chorus2 as the default web interface.


Audio and Video

Our video engine is undergoing a multi-phase rewrite and Kodi 17.0 delivers the next wave of changes with improvements to stability, audio/video synchronisation, refresh rate switching and decoding/encoding of video on all platforms. New inputstream add-ons extend support for streaming protocols like RTMP, MPEG-DASH, SmoothStream and NXMSL. Other new additions include hardware-accelerated DVD playback and OpenGL dithering when performing colour conversion, and Kodi on Linux can now use 3DLUT and simple ICC profiles to colour-correct displays. Audio sinks on most platforms have also been refined.

Music

Changes to the music library bring improved performance for tag scraping, support for mood and artist role tags, and increased browsing speed for larger libraries.

Live TV and PVR

Kodi 17.0 has numerous improvements to Live TV and PVR functionality. Changes start in the user interface with widgets for Recent Recordings and Last Played Channels on the home screen, and the ability to choose showing the PVR guide or Channel window when Kodi starts. The PVR user interface has seen much love. Channels can be sorted by Last Played. TV and Radio recordings are now shown in separate windows. There is a huge performance increase when browsing the guide window. Scheduling of recordings had a complete rewrite with both timers and timer rules now displayed in separate windows, and instant recording options can be customised. There are now 15+ PVR add-ons and most have been updated, including VDR VNSI, Tvheadend, HDHomeRun, Enigma2 and MythTV. Kodi now comes with support in the back-end for Digital Devices Octopus Net and asynchronous connections to back-ends which helps with connection stability.

Android

Kodi 17.0 is now standards-compliant with Android’s official Audio API and requires Android 5.0 or higher as the minimum version. DTS-HD, DTS-X, Dolby TrueHD, and Dolby ATMOS passthrough are now supported on devices that implement AudioTrack v23 or higher. Devices with firmware that does not follow this standard will not support passthrough. Support for 4K video and output and improvements to refresh rate switching and HEVC, VC-1 / WMV 9, and VP9 playback on supported hardware are the icing on the cake.

Windows

Kodi 17.0 is the first version available through the Windows Store and is now one of the most popular downloads in the store. The version in the Store wraps our normal x86 application in a UWP wrapper for installing on Windows 10. The normal installer from the download section of the website can be used on Windows 7 and 8 (and 10).

Changelog

1.1 Live TV and PVR (Personal Video Recorder)
Added enhancement/improvements to PVR addon API (connection state change handling, asynchronous updates & more)[1] [2][3]
Added support for navigation controls between EDL (commercial skipping) during PVR recodings playback[4]
Added support for sorting channels by 'last played' in the Channels window[5]
Added support to changing of timer type for existing timers to ex. change a episode timer to a series timer[6]
Added support to echo up important Status info to Timer Rules in the Timer rules window[7]
Added option to hide disabled timers in the Timer window[8]
Added support for 'Edit timer' & 'Delete timer' rules to context menu in the EPG & Search windows[9][10]
Added support to allow timer creation for EPG in recent past in the EPG window[11]
Added support to use timer logos depending on its state in the EPG window[12][13][14]
Added "ShowTimerRule" builtin to allow key mapping for "add timer" dialog pre-filled for epg-based timer rule[15]
Added 'recent recordings' widget (core support and Estuary PVR home screen)[16]
Added vertical scrollbar to Guide window to allow channel navigation using the mouse (core support and Estuary change)[17]
Added support for JSON-RPC API sync PVR types fields with current implementation[18]
Improveed playback of live streams as PVR Live TV streams can now be identified as "live"
Improved Kodi's Eventlog with extentions to PVR events for 'create/delete timers, timer rules', 'start/stop recordings'[19]
Improved PVR Guide window performance, especially on first open[20][21]
Changes to have separate windows for 'Timer Rules' from 'Timers'[22]
Changes to separate TV and Radio recordings in the Recordings window[23]
Changes to make 'group items' setting be persistent in the Recordings window[24]
Changes to recordings window which now respects "default select action" settings value[25]
Changes to instant recording behavior to make it configurable (fixed-time vs. current show vs. interactive)[26]
Refactoring of the PVR Manager (PVRManager) so addons are now owned by Kodi's addon system[27]
Added, updated, and improved PVR backend clients addons for all popular third-party external PVR backend platforms:
New: Digital Devices Octopus NET Client PVR Addon backend client maintained and available from Kodi's community
VDR VNSI Client PVR Addon backend client maintained and available from Team Kodi
Tvheadend HTSP Client PVR Addon backend client maintained and available from Team Kodi
FilmOn PVR Addon backend client maintained and available from Kodi's community
Stalker Middleware PVR Addon backend client maintained and available from Kodi's community
HDHomeRun PVR Addon backend client maintained and available from Kodi's community
Enigma2 (Dreambox / Vu+ / DBox2) PVR Addon backend client maintained and available from Kodi's community
VBox TV Gateway PVR Addon backend client maintained and available from Kodi's community
Njoy Digital (N7) PVR Addon backend client maintained and available from Kodi's community
PCTV Systems (Broadway) PVR Addon backend client maintained and available from Kodi's community
MythTV PVR Client Addon backend client maintained and available from the Kodi's community
NextPVR (former GB-PVR) PVR Addon backend client maintained and available from Kodi's community
Argus TV (former ForTheRecord) PVR Addon backend client maintained and available from Kodi's community
DVBLink PVR Client Addon backend client maintained and available from Kodi's community
DVBViewer Client PVR Addon backend client maintained and available from Kodi's community
MediaPortal PVR Client Addon backend client maintained and available from Kodi's community
WMC (Windows Media Center) PVR Addon backend client maintained and available from Kodi's community
IPTV Simple Client PVR Addon backend client maintained and available from Kodi's community
RTL-SDR FM Radio Client PVR Addon backend client maintained and available from Kodi's community
PVR Demo Client dummy addon with fake (method stub) PVR backend for PVR skinning and regression testing
1.2 Add-ons Framework, API, and Manager
For full changelogs of all Addons APIs, see Krypton API changes, JSON-RPC, and Add-ons Development Forums
Added a new API level system to binary addons, refactoring the binary addon library interface for Kodi[28]
Added a new input system with an API for keyboard and game controllers as "Peripheral Addons"[29]
Added API support for "Peripheral Addons" for updatable configuration of input devices[29]
Added support for game controller peripheral addons to system addons[30]
Added a user-mappable Joystick (Peripheral) Addon for joysticks and gamepad abstraction APIs[31][29][32]
Added "Peripheral Addons" for game controllers, gamepads, joysticks, and input peripherals (in repo[33]):
Joystick Controller Addon
X-Arcade (XGaming Tankstick) support for Kodi Addon
Steam Controller (gamepad) Addon
Default Game Controller Addon (reference game controller addon based on Xbox 360 gamepad)
PlayStation Game Controller Addon
Nintendo NES Game Controller Addon
Nintendo SNES Game Controller Addon
Nintendo N64 Game Controller Addon
Nintendo GBA Game Controller Addon
Sega Genesis Game Controller Addon
Sega Dreamcast Game Controller Addon
Added support for method to get our useragent string[34]
Added support for Addons to include screenshots to be visible in Kodi's Addons Manager
Added support for skins to display 'recently installed' or 'recently updated' addon list in Addon Manager[35]
Added setting for enabling/disabling ZIP installation of addons from unknown sources (disbaled by default)[36][37]
Added a lot of Doxygen related Addons documentation regarding builtin commands to Documentation[38]
1.3 GUI Engine (Skinning Engine)
For full changelog on changes to the skinning engine, see Krypton API changes and the Skin Development Forum
Added a new default skin called Estuary, with themes & colors, (moving Confluence to addon repo)[39][40]
Added a new default touch-screen enabled skin called Estouchy (moving Re-Touched to addon repo)[39][41]
Added a new Color Manager to handle loading of madVR 3D LUT ICC profiles for color correction[42]
Added a new FFmpeg based image loader to guilib for loading pictures[43]
Added a new FFmpeg based image thumbnails implementation[44]
Added experimental limited support to guilib for animated APNG images in skin textures and backgrounds/posters[45]
Added experimental limited support to guilib for animated GIF images in skin textures and backgrounds/posters[46]
Added support for commercial skipping notifications and toggle action[47]
Added support for defaultcontrol to grouplists to allow skins to define defaults[48]
Added support for 'InstallAddon' builtin to allow skins to install addons on demand[49]
Added Skin.SelectBool builtin support for skinning[50]
Added support for multi-touch to display adjustment for touch panel calibration[51]
Improved skinning PVR section by unifying and/or seperating different PVR related windows
Update guilib ABI (for libgui) to version 5.11.0[52]
Updated keyboard layout for some languages and added new keyboard layout for French AZERTY & Italian QWERTY
Changed context menus by refactoring to a global item based system to unify them[53]
Changed GetThumbSize() to m_imageResso so bookmark/chapter images are same resolution as posters
Changed background loading of thumbnails so that it is enabled by default
Changed default icons with updated versions
1.4 Platform Independent Playback
Major refactoring of Kodi's built-in video player core (which also been renamed from "DVDPlayer" to "VideoPlayer")[54][55][56]
Added support for "InputStream" binary addon extension point that can serve as input stream for VideoPlayer[57][58]
Added support for "InputStream" (input stream) addons to system addons[59]
Added "InputStream" (input stream) client addons for common network streaming protocols and popular services:
InputStream Addon (default reference InputStream Addon by Team Kodi
Test InputStream Addon (Test InputStream Addon for Kodi's new inputstream interface
Adaptive InputStream Addon (InputStream Client addon for several manifest types)
RTMP InputStream Addon (InputStream Client for RTMP streams using librtmp)
MPD (MPEG-DASH) InputStream Addon
SmoothStream InputStream Addon for MS-SSTR (SmoothStreamingMedia) Smooth Streaming Protocol
NXMSL InputStream Addon for Netflix style manifests over MSL
Added support for 3D LUT (3D Lookup Table) & simple ICC profile linking support for color correction[60]
Added video stream selection to audio/subtitle dialogue to choose between multiple videos[55][56]
Added support for dithering for OpenGL rendering (part of VideoPlayer refactoring)[55][56]
Added support for gapless playback on stream change (with the new VideoPlayer)[61]
Added two new view modes that zoom depending on aspect ratio to match the screen heigh[62]
Added method for requesting desired video resolution to demuxer to new VideoPlayer[63]
Added multi-stream input demuxer to support a video stream with external audio tracks/streams[54][64]
Added support to change playback speed with audio enabled between 0.8 to 1.5 of normal speed with 'tempo' controls[65][66]
Added support for external PGS/.sup (Blu-ray Disc) subtitles[67]
Added support for hardware video acceleration of DVD-Video (with the new VideoPlayer)[54]
Added and improved several Audio DSP (Digital Signal Processing) plugins and ADSP addons for Kodi's AudioEngine[68]
Added and updated many audio decoder and encoder addons for Kodi[69]
Changed video renderers to separate graphics rendering from main thread (part of VideoPlayer refactoring)[55]
Improved A/V sync during video playback which reduce time required for audio sync (part of VideoPlayer refactoring)[55][56]
Improved switching refresh rates during video playback (part of VideoPlayer refactoring)[54][55][56]
Improved audio pass-through support during video playback (part of VideoPlayer refactoring)[55][56]
Improved MMAL playback of H.264 MVC (Blu-ray 3D) stereoscopic video with framepacking decoding on Raspberry Pi
Improved Stereoscopic 3D playback of 3D videos (as well as better 2D playback of 3D videos)
Improved and enhanced Blu-ray support (including updated libbluray dependecies from the VideoLAN project[70])[71]
Upgraded FFmpeg multimedia codec and demux libraries to stable branch release version FFmpeg 3.1 (3.1.6)[72][73]
Removed certain audio codecs from core and made them into audio decoder and audio encoder add-ons
1.5 Library
Added support for scraping, storing, and displaying multiple ratings from different sources[74]
Added support for user rating to the OSD (On Screen Display) for music playback[75]
Added support for rating and votes label for specific rating[76]
Added support to filtering by userrating in the mediafilter dialog[77]
Added support to include watched status for movies in actor search dialog[78]
Added artist roles tag to the music library to handle tags for ex. Composer, Conductor, DJMixer, etc.[79]
Added support for MOOD tag scanning for FLAC, Ogg, Xiph, Vorbis, ASF and MP4 audio files to music library[80]
Added option to exclude singles in recently played albums (set to enabled by default)
Added support for showning "in progress tv shows" in the filesystem-tree[81]
Added support Audio and Subtitle Track Count to Smart Playlist selections filtering[82]
Added support to sort actors by number of movies they are in[83]
Added support to sort discography ascending by years
Added support for a method to retrieve video tags[84]
Added ability to JSON-RPC API to return user ratings
Improved performance for tag scanning and browsing speed in the Music library
Improved database performance for addons accessing library
1.6 Web Scrapers
Refactoring and updated scrapers in Kodi for music, movies, tv shows, and music videos
Added possibility to get information from both .nfo and scraper
1.7 AudioEngine
Added initial support for Audio DSP (Digital Signal Processing) plugins and addons for Kodi's AudioEngine[1]
Improved the default cross-platform event driven active state machine pattern ActiveAE (Kodi's AudioEngine)
Improved ALSA sink for ActiveAE for Linux Desktop and generic Linux based Embedded Systems
Improved PulseAudio sink for ActiveAE for Linux Desktop
Improved OSS (Open Sound System) sink for ActiveAE for BSD, like FreeBSD and similar BSD Unix based systems
Improved AudioTrack sink for ActiveAE for Android
Improved Pi Audio sink for ActiveAE for Raspberry Pi
Improved DirectSound sink for ActiveAE for Windows
Improved WASAPI sink for ActiveAE for Windows
Improved CoreAudio sink for ActiveAE for (Mac) OS X and iOS
Improved Darwin sink for ActiveAE for (Mac) OS X and iOS
1.8 Other
Added a new default web interface (this new ew webinterface is called "Chorus2" and is currently at version 2.4.1)[85][86][87]
Added support for AppVeyor CI (CI for Windows) build server for regression testing of Kodi and binary addons[88]
Added support building binary addons to Travis build server for regression testing of Kodi[89]
Added support for auto creating code documentation with Doxygen including To-Do list (http://codedocs.xyz/xbmc/xbmc/ )
Added documentation for skinning API to Doxygen, and moved PyDocs of Kodi API to Doxygen
Added support for IPv6 via cURL
Added default for the WeTek Play USB remote to peripherals as input device[90]
Added support for game controller haptics (rumble motors) when the user receives a notification[91]
Added and updated many audio visualization and screensaver addons for Kodi[92]
Improved code stability, performance. and security, as well as general code clean-up in many core areas
Improved render capture which is used by Ambilight implementations (such as example Boblight)
Improved the the integrated UPnP / DNLA Media Server and Client[93][94]
Improved AirPlay compatibility support for iOS 8 (via updated libshairplay)[95]
Improved Kodi's JSON-RPC API
Improved the the integrated web server (used for remote control web interface and more)
Improved HDMI CEC (Consumer Electronics Control) support by updating to LibCEC 4.01 from Pulse-Eight[96]
Improved "long-press" support functionality of a single button on a remote control
Updated community maintained translations to over 60+ languages to date for Kodi via Transifex Translation System
Updated critical dependency libraries such as sqlite, openssl, gnutls, and CMake (used to compile binary addons)
Updated artwork containing logos with symbol to reflect that Kodi is a registered trademark
Removed support for RAW image decoding (with removal of CxImage as FFmpeg do not support RAW[97][98])
Removed CxImage, Libgif, and JpegIO (C/C++ libraries) as dependencies in favor of FFmpeg image decoding[99][100][101]
Removed all Boost (C++ libraries) and libsquish as dependencies[102][103]
1.9 Android Specific
Moved to Android API 21 and SDK 21 with NDK 10 as minimum, meaning at least Android 5.0 is now required[104][105][106]
Moved jni into its own separate project / submodule (jni backports from SPMC)[107]
Added support for audio pass-through for DTS-HD, DTS-X, Dolby TrueHD, and Dolby ATMOS
Added support in CMake to debug binary-addon packaging issues on Android[108]
Improved MediaCodec API video decoding implementations support for Android 5.0 (API level 21) and later
Improved automatic refresh rate switching support for video playback on Android 5.0 & later (>= API 21), inc. Android TV
Improved support for UltraHD decoding / 4K resolution output when HW supports it
Improved playback of HEVC, VC-1 / WMV 9, and VP9 hardware video decoding when using Android's MediaCodec API
Removed AMLCodec hardware accelerated video decoding support for Android on Amlogic devices[109]
1.10 BSD Specific
Added new CMake based build system of Kodi and binary addons for BSD (as well as for Linux, OSX, and Windows)[110][111]
Improved Kodi support for BSD (operating system) on FreeBSD, PC-BSD, and other similar BSD platforms
Improved VAAPI (Video Acceleration API) support (requires VAAPI compatible hardware and drivers)
Improved VDPAU (NVIDIA) Hardware Video Acceleration (requires VDPAU compatible hardware and drivers)
1.11 Linux Specific
Added new CMake based build system of Kodi and binary addons for Linux (as well as for BSD, OSX, and Windows)[112]
Added multi-architecture/distribution support to Kodi's CMake build system for Linux[113]
Added support for HEVC Main 10 profile (10-bit) hardware video decoding via VAAPI if hardware support it
Added support for VP9 hardware video acceleration via VAAPI if supported by display drivers[114]
Added support for EGL for X11 (which adds zero copy rendering for VAAPI)[55][56]
Added support for zero copy interface to FFmpeg for MMAL renderer on Raspberry Pi[115]
Added support for Clang compiler building of Kodi
Added support for generating Debian packages with Kodi's shiny new CMake/CPack system[116]
Added warning that GNU Build System (Autotools) will be removed soon as deprecated[117]
Improved multi-touch support, and improved touch and gesture support on Linux
Improved support for UltraHD decoding / 4K resolution output when hardware supports it
Improved OpenGL ES and EGL support (using Raspberry Pi as reference devices)
Improved VAAPI (Video Acceleration API) support (requires VAAPI compatible hardware and drivers)
Improved VDPAU (NVIDIA) Hardware Video Acceleration (requires VDPAU compatible hardware and drivers)
Improved XvBA (AMD/ATI) Hardware Video Acceleration (requires XvBA compatible hardware and drivers)
Improved OpenMAX Video Acceleration API support for Linux (using Raspberry Pi as reference hardware)
Improved dedicated AMLCodec hardware accelerated video decoding support for Linux on Amlogic devices
Improved AMD/Intel x86-64 64-bit (AMD64 / IA-64t CPU architectures) support under Linux
Removed Wayland display server protocol support (as depended heavily on removed Boost C++ libraries)[118]
1.12 iOS Specific
Added support for iOS 10.0 by adding support for compiling Kodi with Xcode 8 IDE and iOS SDK 10.0[119]
Added support for TVOS (Apple's iOS fork for Apple TV 4) to Kodi mainline
Added support to build iOS for ARM64 (64-bit iOS)
Improved Apple VDADecoder Video Acceleration support for iOS (on iPad, iPhone, and iPod iDevices)
Improved touch and gesture support for iOS based iDevice platforms (iPad, iPod, and iPhone)
1.13 OS X Specific
Added new CMake based build system of Kodi and binary addons for OSX (as well as for Linux, BSD, and Windows)[120]
Added “Copy to Kodi” functionality on iOS (for “Open In” Kodi feature in iOS)
Added support for compiling Kodi with Xcode 8 IDE for OSX 10.11 (El Capitan) and macOS 10.12 (Sierra)[121]
Improved Apple VDADecoder Video Acceleration support for (Mac) OS X
1.14 Windows Specific
Converted Kodi to an Desktop Bridge UWP (Universal Windows Platform) compatible app for Windows 10 (x86 only)[122]
Added initial support to compile Kodi for Microsoft's UWP (Universal Windows Platform) APIs[122]
Added new CMake based build system of Kodi and binary addons for Windows (as well as for Linux, BSD, and OSX)[123]
Added support for HEVC Main 10 profile (10-bit) hardware video decoding via DXVA on Windows if drivers support it
Added support for 10 to 16 bit video output through the DXVA renderer
Added support for per-monitor DPI and scaling[124]
Improved rendering system for DirectX 11 and Direct3D 11 native support on Microsoft Windows
Improved DXVA/DXVA2 (DirectX Video Acceleration) support (requires DXVA/DXVA2 compatible hardware & drivers)
Changed all external libraries to be built with Microsoft Visual Studio 2015
Removed unneeded DXVA to D3D11VA wrapper as we now build FFmpeg with D3D11VA support and use it directly[125]


Kodi v17.0 “Krypton” Release Candidate 4
27 Jan

This is the fourth Release Candidate for our upcoming v17.0 “Krypton” which contains our continuous effort to further improve v17.0 before we make it final. Our team will certainly try to tackle as much of the reported problems as possible with the limited resources we have. We do want to note that since we are just a small team some of the reported bugs might not get fixed due to lack of developers or time. As such we would certainly welcome any developer who has the ability to help us out to try and fix the bugs he or she encounters and submit it to our code base for review. We sure would like to thank every one involved with either development, testing or simply helping out others with answering their questions.

Fixes done in this release candidate:

• Update Estuary and Estouchy with some bugfixes and improvements
• Fix Kodi not starting on some phones running Android 7
• Revert changes that disabled plugin listing cache that which caused reduced browsing speed
• Fix the cause of favourites not refreshing
• Fix add-ons not being added to favourites if done through add-on manager
• Update our default webinterface Chorus2 with several fixes and features
• Fix possible deadlock when installing/uninstalling PVR add-ons
• Fix possible failed add-on installs on Windows with a retry
• Fix changing song ratings
• Make sure to stop playback before uninstalling a PVR add-on
• Try to handle graphics failures due to bad graphics driver on Windows
• Fix long timeout for certain audio streams

A full list can be found here
https://github.com/xbmc/xbmc/milestone/98?closed=1


Kodi v17.0 “Krypton” Release Candidate 3
12 Jan

Just before New Years’s day we released our first official Release Candidate which marks the final step towards the final release of v17.0. These Release Candidate builds are dedicated to gain further feedback from users who are willing to take the jump towards v17 and we sure are grateful if they do as that provides valuable information on general stability and usability. Our team will certainly try to tackle as much of the reported problems as possible with the limited resources we have. We do want to note that since we are just a small team some of the reported bugs might not get fixed due to lack of developers or time. As such we would certainly welcome any developer who has the ability to help us out to try and fix the bugs he or she encounters and submit it to our code base for review. We sure would like to thank every one involved with either development, testing or simply helping out others with answering their questions.

Fixes done in this release candidate:

• Update Estuary with some bugfixes and improvements
• Revert change that cause video playback problems on some files
• Fix mouse not reaching right side of the screen on OSX
• Several fixes regarding general video playback
• Several fixes regarding EPG/PVR
• Several fixes and improvements regarding cmake build system
• Update to CEC 4.0.1

A full list can be found here
https://github.com/xbmc/xbmc/milestone/97?closed=1

What’s new?
In our first Release Candidate announcement we’ve already covered most of the new features. Should you have missed this you can of course still read up on it here: Kodi v17.0 “Krypton” Release Candidate https://kodi.tv/kodi-v17-krypton-release-candidate-1/


Kodi v17 “Krypton” Release Candidate 1
29 Dec

We want to close the year 2016 with a blast and as such we are happy to announce this Release Candidate of Kodi v17.0 Krypton. This final and last Kodi v17.0 will be action packed with a lot of features, changes and bug fixes and we left no stone unturned. Nearly every section had at least some maintenance done to make Kodi better than it already was.

First and foremost we sure would like to thank every one involved with either development, testing or simply helping out others with answering their questions. Now that is done lets look at the biggest changes that were done.

What’s new?

Estuary and Estouchy: next generation

Past March we announced that we had replaced the aging Confluence skin which did it’s job since 2009 as default skin. V17 will mark the new arrival of Estuary and Estouchy (touch enabled) skin as the new default skins. Many months have been put in getting these skins build from the ground up by phil65 and utilise all of the new features Kodi has to offer. During this period we also rethought on what was actually needed for skins and with this we also added features we only came up with by rebuilding this skin as we wondered why it never was able to do it in the first place. The home screen has been revamped and now utilises a smartplaylists implementation to automatically show you what probably interests you the most. We suggest you just give it a try and see for yourself. If you still prefer Confluence skin then you don’t need to worry as it’s still available from the official Kodi repository. With some help from ryanmah for the mockups, ichabod-fletchman for helping out this final version of Estuary.

Home screenMovie library
At same time the touch skin Estouchy also got matched by our senior skin developer ronie to match the Estuary look.

For some more screenshots you can visit the release announcement here: Default skin: Next Gen. Regardless you’ll see when you install this new update.

Setting section has been more clear

One of the things probably most of us hate the most is going through settings and see what they do. Often are not clear what they do or just not obvious. We felt the same and we have now made a big shuffle of certain settings to group them in a better way and improve the text and help description. I’m sure it’s not perfect and things still need changing however it’s already a big step forward. Additionally we’ve put a central button in settings screen for adding new media sources that you can add to your library. To make a long story short here are some screenshots to give you an idea on how it looks. Other than that I guess you’ll just have to try for yourself. Remember to look at the bottom of the screen as that often contains hints on what a settings actually does.

SettingsSources
PVR made easier and better

With v17 the way we handle PVR add-ons has been given a makeover as well. With these changes we hope that the threshold of getting PVR running inside Kodi has been greatly reduced. Once you configured and enabled the PVR add-on you are ready. No more additional options to enable to get going. Of course you will still need to set up a PVR backend/server first however that is outside of our scope of work. Additionally a lof work has been done to improve stability and usability to this section. Switching channels, EPG (electronic program guide) as well as setting and changing recording timers have all been greatly improved. From the user interface little has changed besides the new default skin and some settings that are moved or are now a bit more clear what they do.

Channel listEPG


Privacy policy

Your privacy is an important factor that the XBMC Foundation and Team Kodi considers in the development of all of our software and services. We are committed to being transparent and open. This Privacy Policy explains generally how we receive information about you, and what we do with that information once we have it. As such we have added this privacy policy to our website and also made it available from within Kodi itself to read.

Privacy policy

WARNING: This of course does not mean your privacy is totally protected. In the end you are still responsible yourself for whatever you install or share. For the official Kodi repository we have a set of strict rules in place for any add-on that is added or updated and strive towards protecting the users from any harm that might come from using them. However once you decide to install any other repository or add-ons from outside our official repository you must make sure you are informed of any consequences. Do not blindly install any add-on but make sure to read up on what it does and what it might share with others. If you are not sure then take the safe route and don’t install it.

You might want to read this: Be aware what additional add-ons you install

Add-on manager changes and features

Since v10 the add-on repository has been an integral part of Kodi and has made it a breeze for expanding the capabilities and receiving updates for these add-ons and skins. Together with the skin changes we did in Estuary we certainly hope to make the experience a bit better.

Unknown sources….

First of all we added an option to warn new users that installing add-ons outside of Kodi repository could potentially bring harmful add-ons to their system. A more extensive write up (read here) explains these hazards they might get their selves into. Of course this doesn’t mean all are bad however we do feel that users should at least be warned. From now on if a user wants to install any add-on from .zip they need to acknowledge they understood the risk and enable the option to allow installation. This is a one time warning so you do not need to do this each time.

Recently installed or update

From now on you are able to see which add-ons recently updated. It might come in handy should some problems arise as you not always noticed the popup telling you an update was installed. At least now you are able to track down which one(s).

Recently updatedUnknown sources


Music library

Over the years our music library handling wasn’t always the best and luckily a while ago some developers stepped up and started improving the lacking functionality and added new features. Some improvements are better tag reading and scraping. Handling of albums and artist has also been improved with the addition of adding artist role handling for music (composer, conductor, djmixer). Certain files or websites also support mood and this has now also been added so you can now select music based on certain type of mood instead of genre. With all these changes in regards to the music library and part and better tag scanning and usage a mandatory music files re-scan has to be done to extract all this information. After you upgrade and enter the music library a choice will be giving to re-scan now or later. As this re-scan can take up quite some time and resources you can answer NO and continue browsing your library. Once you exit library and re-enter you will be prompted again asking to re-scan. Once you answer YES Kodi will start scanning all your music files and extract the tag data they contain to a certain degree. As mentioned this process takes quite some time depending on the size. During this time Kodi might be somewhat slower than normal. Do note that this will not reset your library to a new state or that you will loose data. It will simply update what is available and will leave all play counts and the rest as they were.

Music libraryMusic library


Video Player

Since the beginning of XBMC back in the days while it was running on the XBOX there was something like DVDPlayer. As the name probably implies it was used to playback DVD discs/files. During the years this DVDPlayer was improved and patched up to stay within modern day standards of video playback expectancy. However it became clear that for the future a major overhaul and rewrite was needed to keep up and be future proof. As such the developers who did the AudioEngine in v12 picked up this job and have now transformed it into VideoPlayer. Together with some platform developers they ripped out the old DVDPlayer code, chopped it in pieces, put it in the blender, picked the needed pieces and put it back in without breaking the rest of Kodi (hopefully). This certainly wasn’t an easy job as DVDPlayer was like the bottom block of Jenga tower that needed to be replaced while still being entangled throughout the whole tower. It had it’s tentacles in parts of the code where it shouldn’t have been in the first place. Probably over a year ago work started on getting this untangled and made ready to be replaced by the new implementation.

Well now you might wonder what does this all mean? Well a whole lot and it will probably not be as clear when using Kodi as a normal user. From a developers side it means a lot as the code is now more contained in it’s own section which makes maintenance a whole lot easier. As for the users here are some things they will notice already or in the future.

Video stream selection

You might already know of the possibility where you can select the audio track of a movie like different languages or quality. With video stream selection you are now able to select a different video stream should that be available. Although not widely used concert DVDs are certainly a good example where you are able to select a different camera angle for watching the concert. Although this sounds like a niche feature it’s certainly important for the next feature we will bring up.

Input stream add-ons

The work done with VideoPlayer has already gained one of the most exciting new features we can think of which is Input Stream add-ons. This enables possibility of native written add-ons can now handle part of the video playback selection and just hand over the video stream to Kodi. A perfect example of this is DASH (Dynamic Adaptive STreaming over HTTP) which is something YouTube uses to give you the different video qualities depending on network speed. With Input Stream add-ons we can now have this capability as separate add-on instead of having this in the Kodi core. Here comes the video stream selection into play as you might want to select a different quality or language if made available. We’re happy to say that by default we ship the MPD add-on that handles the DASH audio/video stream selection standard and hands over the results to Kodi. The available YouTube add-on in Kodi repository doesn’t handle this feature as of yet however I’m sure it will be updated somewhere in the future.

More features will come from this complete VideoPlayer rework and we will be sure to inform you once they have been added. For now we will try to make current features work to their fullest potential.

Android

Improved audio support

As you may have read several times is that the Android part of Kodi is currently low on development. It’s the platform with the largest user base but somehow there don’t seem to be a lot of developers around that can work on Kodi for that platform. Since Kodi isn’t the standard JAVA app like the million other out there working on it is certainly a challenge. Regardless for this release we still have some big improvements lined up. The most important one is probably what most of you have been waiting for and that is HD audio passthrough capabilities. Although we had a proof of concept for v16 it wasn’t in a state where the team was comfortable adding it that late in release cycle. However for v17 we can now tell you that passthrough for DTS, DTS-HD, DTS-X, Dolby TrueHD and Dolby ATMOS should all be working if your device supports this. The NVIDIA SHIELD TV is certainly one of the best supported devices that use the standard Android audio methods and within few months Amlogic devices that will receive new firmware update for Android Marshmallow should also be better supported (please contact your vendor for this). At the same time we also got rid of any past hacks or workarounds that were in place that caused lots of problems on certain devices while not on others. As such we only support what Android officially supports which could mean mean your device might loose some passthrough options however we feel it is needed step to take to provide the best support on all devices.

Android 5.0 Lollipop (or later) as minimum

Over the years the Android platform started to mature and catch up to the other platforms regarding capabilities. This also means that we can drop all the custom code we had to add in the beginning to get Kodi running at all as that’s now becoming obsolete. One of those from back in the days was libStageFright which we dropped in a previous release and was replaced by the standard MediaCodec from Android. With v17 we have started to clean up all the old implementations which sadly also means we had to set the minimum Android version to at least 5.0 Lollipop. It’s uncertain at this time if we even have to go higher and set minimum to Android 6.0 Marshmallow as this contains certain features we need to improve Kodi. For now you are safe if you at least have Android 5.0 Don’t worry you can keep using Kodi v16 on all previous Android versions however you just can upgrade to a newer Kodi version. Certain devices will now also support switching the Kodi interface resolution itself so you could potentially set Kodi in 4K skin resolution. This all depends on the hardware and firmware.

Welcome to Android MediaCodec standards and goodbye AMLogic specific code

One other custom implementation is AMLogic code which is were it all started with Kodi on Android and we used this to acces certain hardware parts which Android couldn’t yet. As already mentioned Android improved a lot over the years and it now also means the custom AMLogic code can now be turned of and removed. Sadly AMLogic doesn’t follow the standard Android and releases firmware which is just a tiny bit different. This could mean that some devices might loose some capabilities as the firmware does things a bit different than we expect. This is all on the manufacturers side of these chipsets and they have to fix it. Sadly we can’t keep supporting this deviation from the standard API as we are low enough on developers already. We sure hope AMLogic will see this and start to follow the Android standard that has been set since Android 5.0 With dropping all these custom code we hope we can keep moving forward with Kodi on Android and make it much easier to maintain for the future. For Android 7 Nougat we even had a lot of help from a great guy at Google who implemented some features for us and we are looking forward on using that. This absolutely does not mean that Kodi will not work on AMLogic chipset devices anymore.

Windows Store

KODI_BLOG_WIN_300x300_CIn case you missed the big news some time ago, Kodi got added to the Windows Store as a Desktop Bridge UWP app. It is still the same Kodi version you are used to use, without any limitations. Although it is still possible (and always will be) to download and install Kodi from our website, it is now also possible for Windows 10 users to download and install Kodi from the Windows Store. This brings a few benefits, such as automatic updating. The Windows Store application uses the same userdata as the version from our website so you can switch between the two versions without issues.

NOTE: This also means that if you are currently running Kodi v16 and want to try out the Windows Store version, your Kodi databases and add-ons will be upgraded to the v17 versions. You might want to make a backup of the userdata before! You can read the full announcement here: Kodi goes Windows Store



Game controller add-on

In the past it has always been a pain to configure game controllers within Kodi. There were some XML files people could download and copy to a certain location. This has now been solved by making them add-ons (like almost everything else) which you can install with a click of a button. This rework of the controllers was needed for retro gaming feature which may land somewhere in the future. No sadly that doesn’t mean retro gaming will be available in v17 but we keep our hopes up for the future.

3dlut and simple ICC linking support for color correction

Developer laurimyllari added a ColorManager class that supports loading madVR 3DLUT files, and loading ICC display profiles, creating source profiles and linking them. Users can use this to correct their display response with a 3DLUT file, or emulate other displays (with whitepoint, primaries and gamma selectable at runtime) with an ICC profile of their own display. The ICC profile linking is still work in progress, but is functional and shows what can be done with it.

A new default web interface called Chorus2

Kodi has many hidden secrets and even team members don’t know the full potential it packs. One of those features you might not know is that Kodi also has a web-interface from which you can browse your library and start playback directly on your Kodi device. It’s something we’ve never really promoted that it was available and I’m not really sure why. However the past few years not much was changed to to it and it kinda fell into decay with only minor fixes done to keep it kind of functional. For Kodi v17 this has been radically changed as we have packaged up a brand new default web-interface called Chorus2.


Kodi v17 “Krypton” The last Beta 7
19 Dec

It’s almost Christmas and as such we wanted to bring you the last Beta version of Kodi 17. This means we have good hopes we have squashed the biggest and known issues and up next we will go to Release Candidates which in the end will result in the final release. However let’s not get ahead of ourselves and first gather some more feedback on testing this Beta 7 version. The changes for this seventh an last beta are the result of the continuous effort from the developers, either from inside the team or outside to get v17 into final release shape. We sure would like to thank every one involved with either development, testing or simply helping out others with answering their questions.

Fixes done in this Beta 7:
• Update Estuary and Estouchy skin with some bugfixes
• Enable IEC61937 audio passthrough support on Android for DTS-HD, TrueHD, DTS:X and ATMOS in case the Android version supports this
• Fix PVR channel OSD display conditions
• Fix possible crash in PVR EPG
• Fix multiple selection in file browser
• Fix duplicate context menu for PVR recordings
• Fix wrong window size on OSX
• Fix problem on Windows that currently in use skins couldn’t be updated
• Further improvement of cmake build system
• Various other improvements and fixes

A full list can be found here

What’s new?
In general nothing really as this was just about bugfixing and further finalising our new buildsystem.

Estuary and Estouchy: next generation

Past March we announced that v17 would feature a brand new default skin called Estuary and since then it has been included in every build we have released. During this period our developers kept improving on how it looked, behaved and made use of the latest features that got included from what is shaping up to be the final release of v17. Since more and more users also started to use these development builds we started to receive a lot of feedback, where most was positive there was also some negative or at least constructive comments. As we are not deaf to these comments and try to create the best experience, our skin developer phil65 went back to the drawing board and rethought on how to incorporate this feedback into wat should become the final skin. With some help from ryanmah for the mockups, ichabod-fletchman for helping out this didn’t resulted in a total rewrite but simply reworking some parts of how the skin looks and behaves. The underlying skin code still remains the same for a very large part except for the parts where a smarter way of doing this magic was found. The visual top layer what you will see should still feel quite familiar if you have used any past v17 builds as not everything was redone.

At same time the touch skin Estouchy also got matched by our senior skin developer ronie to match the Estuary look.

For some screenshot you can visit the release announcement here: Default skin: Next Gen. Regardless you’ll see when you install this new update.



A new default web interface called Chorus2

Kodi has many hidden secrets and even team members don’t know the full potential it packs. One of those features you might not know is that Kodi also has a web-interface from which you can browse your library and start playback directly on your Kodi device. It’s something we’ve never really promoted that it was available and I’m not really sure why. However the past few years not much was changed to to it and it kinda fell into decay with only minor fixes done to keep it kind of functional. For Kodi v17 this has been radically changed as we have packaged up a brand new default web-interface called Chorus2.

chorus2-artist

For some screenshot you can visit the release announcement here: A new webinterface called Chorus2. Regardless you’ll see when you install this new update.

Krypton nightly builds
As you may have noticed we only release a new beta or release candidate once in a while that includes a list of fixes that were done since previous release. Additionally we also create these so called nightly builds specifically for Krypton that include the latest fixes that our developers have included and will end up in the next beta, release candidate or final release. By providing these builds we hope that users who install these will help us confirm the problem was fixed or identify if we accidentally created a regression from previous builds made. These nightlies are safe to install on top of the Kodi v17 you already have installed on your device and can be found on the download page. Be sure to get these builds from the Krypton folder and not from any other.


Kodi v17 “Krypton” Beta 6
30 Nov

Kodi 17 features a huge amount of work in areas like video playback, live TV and PVR/DVR, the music library, skinning and more. It features a new default skin, as well as a new default touchscreen skin, named Estuary and Estouchy, respectively. With all this work done over the months some bugs might slip through and were hoping to quickly squash the coming beta releases. The changes for this sixth beta are the result of the continuous effort from the developers, either from inside the team or outside to get v17 into final release shape. and any outside. We sure would like to thank every one involved with either development, testing or simply helping out others with question.

Fixes done in this Beta 6:
• Show select dialog for director button in the information panel if there’s more than one director
• Fix video stall on Android during skipping of video or when opening the player controls
• Fix potential memory leak in image handling
• Fix several problems in the cmake build system
• Redact username and password from the log if user has advancedsettings.xml
• Fix creating temp folder when handling add-on updates on Windows which fixes the problem from Beta 4
• Fix possible crash on handling certain fonts
• Fix possible EPG lock up
• Fix ASS subtitles on Windows
• Fix memory leak with ASS and certain regular subtitles on all platforms
• Revert change that broke RTL (right to left) language subtitles
• Force re scan of music file tags to makes use of the newest available library structure
• Fix not updating the favourites menu item after changes had been made
• Add privacy policy screen in system information
• Remember last used subtitle service when searching again
• Fix hash checking in add-on installer which caused certain add-on not downloading when multiple repositories were installed
• Fix conversion of POPM music tag values to the new 0 to 10 rating
• Fix several issues to further improve controller support
• Update CEC library with additional fixes
• Fix some tag reading issues from music files

A full list of changes can be found here
https://github.com/xbmc/xbmc/milestone/93?closed=1


Kodi v17 “Krypton” Beta 5
29 Oct

Kodi 17 features a huge amount of work in areas like video playback, live TV and PVR/DVR, the music library, skinning and more. It features a new default skin, as well as a new default touchscreen skin, named Estuary and Estouchy, respectively. With all this work done over the months some bugs might slip through and were hoping to quickly squash the coming beta releases. The changes for this fifth beta are the result of the continuous effort from the developers, either from inside the team or outside to get v17 into final release shape. and any outside. We sure would like to thank every one involved with either development, testing or simply helping out others with question. Below is a condensed list of fixes and changes done in this beta 5 release.

Fixes done in this Beta 5:
• Fix playback of HLS streams
• Fix skin settings not loading when “reload skin” was triggered
• Fix segfault on EOF for video caused by postprocessing
• Fix possible crash on Android when other Android apps had missing icons
• Change splash screen text once per second to show it’s busy doing database and add-on upgrades instead of just static text.
• Fix missing binary add-ons like PVR and controller handling on Windows
• Add back seek to time using numeric input on video files

• Microsoft has rolled out a fix for users of the Kodi UWP version in combination with AMD videocard that had BSOD. For more information see: Blue screen with error code 0×139

Known problems
• Upgrading the skin you are currently using fails on Windows.
• Upgrading any add-on currently fails on Windows.
• Possible video freezes on Raspberry Pi and Android.

We are trying to find the cause solve these problems. Of course there are some more however these are the most noticeable ones. Remember this is still Beta software so please be patient.

For completeness here are the fixes done in previous beta

Fixes done in this Beta 4:
• Fix certain types of 16bit encoded passthrough streams on OSX
• Fix activate/deactivate on read only timers
• Fix reading interlaced modes from defaultsettings when set to none
• Fix compilation albums, last played rules and fix missing sort order rules in smartplaylists
• Fix relative seeks on video playback
• Fix info dialog for recordings on home screen
• Don’t load inputstreams on startup if they are disabled
• Fix subsequent seeks with video playback
• Explicitly check for DTS capability for making settings visible
• Add ARMv8A 64bit builds for Android
• Add GetLastModifiedDate to the webserver
• Fix playback of DVD ISO files
• Fix focus of list items in media windows (like plugins)
• Change spinners options in smartplaylist editors to a select menu
• Add workaround for AMD/ATI cards regarding interlaced content
• Fix gapless playback for music
• Fix controller on NVIDIA Shield TV not working after it when to sleep
• Fix video playback when skipping beyond end of file on mp4 videos
• Improve crashlog reporting for UWP app in Windows Store
• Export max ratings to NFO files by default
• Fix hardware decoding on some mpeg2 files and DVDs for AMD/ATI cards as their drivers aren’t that good
• Fix aspect ratio calculation for 3D modes
• Fix video playback in image slideshows
• Fix channel group change in PVR
• Fix several memory leaks

A full list can be found here

What’s new?
This round we didn’t really add new features as the focus was to further improve our code and solving possible bugs. We do have some more improvements lined up for next beta so stay tuned…….

Windows Store

KODI_BLOG_WIN_300x300_CIn case you missed the big news some time ago, Kodi got added to the Windows Store as a Desktop Bridge UWP app. It is still the same Kodi version you are used to use, without any limitations. Although it is still possible (and always will be) to download and install Kodi from our website, it is now also possible for Windows 10 users to download and install Kodi from the Windows Store. This brings a few benefits, such as automatic updating. The Windows Store application uses the same userdata as the version from our website so you can switch between the two versions without issues. NOTE: This also means that if you are currently running Kodi v16 and want to try out the Windows Store version, your Kodi databases and add-ons will be upgraded to the v17 versions. You might want to make a backup of the userdata before! You can read the full announcement here: Kodi goes Windows Store

NOTE: Since it takes a bit of time to publish in Windows Store you might need to wait a bit till the update is available.





All in all this Beta 5 might not seem very excited but that’s how it’s supposed to be. We’re simply focusing more on stability and working out the details than keep adding bells and whistles.

Conclusion
As previously noted, this is only a small summary of all the improvements in Kodi 17. For more, see the Alpha 2 and Alpha 3 posts. Should you want to download and install this build please visit our download page. You can install these build just on top of your current Kodi installation.

• Official Kodi 17.0 development downloads (near the bottom of the page)
• LibreELEC Raspberry Pi / x86 versions can be found here

Bug reports

Please report any problems on our forum http://forum.kodi.tv and not on the release announcement as it is not a reporting or help section. Don’t forget we also have some official tablet/phone remote controls for both Android and iOS. You can find the links to them on the download page.


Kodi v17 “Krypton” Beta 4
22 Oct

Kodi 17 features a huge amount of work in areas like video playback, live TV and PVR/DVR, the music library, skinning and more. It features a new default skin, as well as a new default touchscreen skin, named Estuary and Estouchy, respectively. With all this work done over the months some bugs might slip through and were hoping to quickly squash the coming beta releases. The changes for this fourth beta are the result of the continuous effort from the developers, either from inside the team or outside to get v17 into final release shape. and any outside. We sure would like to thank every one involved with either development, testing or simply helping out others with question. Below is a condensed list of fixes and changes done in this beta 4 release.

Fixes done in this Beta 4:
• Fix certain types of 16bit encoded passthrough streams on OSX
• Fix activate/deactivate on read only timers
• Fix reading interlaced modes from defaultsettings when set to none
• Fix compilation albums, last played rules and fix missing sort order rules in smartplaylists
• Fix relative seeks on video playback
• Fix info dialog for recordings on home screen
• Don’t load inputstreams on startup if they are disabled
• Fix subsequent seeks with video playback
• Explicitly check for DTS capability for making settings visible
• Add ARMv8A 64bit builds for Android
• Add GetLastModifiedDate to the webserver
• Fix playback of DVD ISO files
• Fix focus of list items in media windows (like plugins)
• Change spinners options in smartplaylist editors to a select menu
• Add workaround for AMD/ATI cards regarding interlaced content
• Fix gapless playback for music
• Fix controller on NVIDIA Shield TV not working after it when to sleep
• Fix video playback when skipping beyond end of file on mp4 videos
• Improve crashlog reporting for UWP app in Windows Store
• Export max ratings to NFO files by default
• Fix hardware decoding on some mpeg2 files and DVDs for AMD/ATI cards as their drivers aren’t that good
• Fix aspect ratio calculation for 3D modes
• Fix video playback in image slideshows
• Fix channel group change in PVR
• Fix several memory leaks

A full list can be found here

Known problems
• Upgrading the skin you are currently using fails on Windows.
• Possible video freezes on Raspberry Pi and Android.

We are trying to find the cause solve these problems. Of course there are some more however these are the most noticeable ones.

What’s new?
This round we didn’t really add new features as the focus was to further improve our code and solving possible bugs. We do have some more improvements lined up for next beta so stay tuned…….

Windows Store

KODI_BLOG_WIN_300x300_CIn case you missed the big news some time ago, Kodi got added to the Windows Store as a Desktop Bridge UWP app. It is still the same Kodi version you are used to use, without any limitations. Although it is still possible (and always will be) to download and install Kodi from our website, it is now also possible for Windows 10 users to download and install Kodi from the Windows Store. This brings a few benefits, such as automatic updating. The Windows Store application uses the same userdata as the version from our website so you can switch between the two versions without issues. NOTE: This also means that if you are currently running Kodi v16 and want to try out the Windows Store version, your Kodi databases and add-ons will be upgraded to the v17 versions. You might want to make a backup of the userdata before! You can read the full announcement here: Kodi goes Windows Store

NOTE: Since it takes a bit of time to publish in Windows Store you might need to wait a bit till the update is available.







All in all this Beta 4 might not seem very excited but that’s how it’s supposed to be. We’re simply focusing more on stability and working out the details than keep adding bells and whistles.

Conclusion
As previously noted, this is only a small summary of all the improvements in Kodi 17. For more, see the Alpha 2 and Alpha 3 posts. Should you want to download and install this build please visit our download page. You can install these build just on top of your current Kodi installation.

• Official Kodi 17.0 development downloads (near the bottom of the page)
• LibreELEC Raspberry Pi / x86 versions can be found here

Please report any problems on our forum http://forum.kodi.tv and not on the release announcement. Don’t forget we also have some official tablet/phone remote controls for both Android and iOS. You can find the links to them on the download page.


Kodi v17 “Krypton” Beta 3
05 Oct

Kodi 17 features a huge amount of work in areas like video playback, live TV and PVR/DVR, the music library, skinning and more. It features a new default skin, as well as a new default touchscreen skin, named Estuary and Estouchy, respectively. With all this work done over the months some bugs might slip through and were hoping to quickly squash the coming beta releases. The changes for this third beta are the result of the continuous effort from the developers, either from inside the team or outside to get v17 into final release shape. and any outside. We sure would like to thank every one involved with either development, testing or simply helping out others with question. Below is a condensed list of fixes and changes done in this beta 3 release.

Fixes done in this Beta 3:
• Fix album rating which should show as 0-10 compared to 0-5 before
• Add ability to JSON-RPC to return user ratings
• Fix mouse focus offset on buttons in EPG window
• Check on selected fanart pack in Estuary
• Fix WAV playback on Windows
• Add proper screen scale for latest iOS devices
• Add time button on PVR information dialog
• Fix certain bugs and improve RenderCpature which is use for Boblight
• Fix unloading of EPG data on exiting the application
• Fix on handling CUE sheet
• Add some additional music roles in the Music sections
• Fix possible deadlock on using PVR as startup window
• Don’t use hyphens in front of temperature as they might make it seem as negative temperature
• Exclude singles in recently played albums
• Show text during migrations tasks like database and add-ons upgrade
• Fix PVR not working after using the login screen
• Improve handling of event where displayed changed on Windows which could cause a crash
• Add possibility to get information from both .nfo and scraper
• Fix packaging of binary add-ons on Android builds
• Fix video playback on older Mac Mini devices
• Workaround amlogic passthrough on devices running Android 5
• Fix fontsetting on switching skins
• Fix ghost timers on certain PVR clients
• Fix DVD menu playback and audio
• Fix crashing on OSX with playing DVDs
• Require a click on slider before you can change it. Click again to accept the change and continue navigation
• Variety of fixes to video playback
• Various skin fixes and changes

A full list can be found here

What’s new?
Next to the list of fixes we also added some features we thought would certainly help along the usability of Kodi. With this beta a long awaited feature was added since the early days of Eden (v11) or even earlier. As most of you know on each new Kodi version there are certain database changes which happen on the first start of Kodi after you upgraded. On some devices this might be over quite fast however for some slower devices this might seem like Kodi has frozen while it was actually finishing the database upgrade. We did acknowledge this problem and have always wanted to add a some message on the Kodi splash screen telling users what is actually happening. We with this v17 beta version we finally had the ability to add this feature given the fact enough pre-work had been done making this possible. Additionally what now happens is that on the first upgrade our add-on manager will fetch the latest available add-ons for that specific versions and will process these before going to Kodi home screen itself. One of the most noticeable problems before was when you had a non default skin installed, after upgrade the screen went black and it started installing the new skin version. Now all this happens during the first start and you’ll see a nice message saying it’s processing the upgrade. Depending on the amount of installed skins, add-ons and internet connection speed this could take a while. So please, don’t turn of your device during this initial startup period.

v17-addonmigration

Next notable change is the way the settings sliders work. I’m sure we all came across them one way or another in the Kodi setting screen or in some add-ons and struggled navigating around them. You tried to go to the left or right but then you accidentally changed the slider setting and had to set it back again. From now on you don’t have this problem any more because you will first need to highlight the slider, click on it and then you can adjust it’s settings. Once satisfied just click again and you can navigate freely to the next control on the window. If the slider has two nibbles on it that control the setting then the process is the same but you first move to the next nibble and then you accept it. Although this a small change it was one of those annoyances that made navigation in Kodi not always easy.

v17-slider-controls



Windows Store

KODI_BLOG_WIN_300x300_CIn case you missed the big news some time ago, Kodi got added to the Windows Store as a Desktop Bridge UWP app. It is still the same Kodi version you are used to use, without any limitations. Although it is still possible (and always will be) to download and install Kodi from our website, it is now also possible for Windows 10 users to download and install Kodi from the Windows Store. This brings a few benefits, such as automatic updating. The Windows Store application uses the same userdata as the version from our website so you can switch between the two versions without issues. NOTE: This also means that if you are currently running Kodi v16 and want to try out the Windows Store version, your Kodi databases and add-ons will be upgraded to the v17 versions. You might want to make a backup of the userdata before! You can read the full announcement here: Kodi goes Windows Store

NOTE: Since it takes a bit of time to publish in Windows Store you might need to wait a bit till the update is available.

All in all this Beta 3 might not seem very excited but that’s how it’s supposed to be. We’re simply focusing more on stability and working out the details than keep adding bells and whistles.


Kodi 16.1 – Jarvis – Mark XVI
24 Apr

Once a ‘final’ version is released some new bugs and/or problems usually appear out of nowhere, and this release is no exception. Even though tens of thousands of users were already testing the 16.0 version before release and we as team trying very hard to prevent any problems, as soon as millions start using the released version some problems we either did not think of or which we did not notice before pop up. To counter some of these new issues, we’re bringing you this maintenance release called 16.1 which has some additional fixes on top of the 16.0

It should be ok to just install this on top of your current Kodi 16.0 version without uninstalling previous version. For the MySQL users out there; we never bump the database versions in our bugfix or maintenance releases – you can safely keep using it within your network.

Fixes done in 16.1
• Never cache addons directories
• Fix typo when calculating forced ratio size
• AndroidStorageProvider: Ignore /mnt/runtime and don’t call Exists all the way every some 500 ms as this will affect performance
• Set of fixes for DirectX rendering
• Fixed crash under JSON-RPC on iOS/OSX
• 20% performance gain on opening EPG guide window
• Add missing libgif.so to the Android package
• Fix Kodi freezing if no ADSP add-on is present
• EventServer security fix by only allowing localhost
• Fix possible lockup when entering EPG grid
• Fix possible problems with rendering on Windows
• Fix possible non working key presses after a key long press
• Don’t do a video chapter skip if there’s only one chapter
• Fix possible lock up by increasing timeout to let screensavers properly exit
• Fix render capture (bookmark images) on certain hardware with DXVA on Windows
• Fix problem in ZeroConfBrowser that could cause problems on exit
• Fix crash one OSX 10.7 when trying to resolve HDD names
• Fix possible crashes when using VAAPI and DXVA video rendering
• Fix song reported on playback of songs from cuesheet
The complete technical list can be found on our Github milestones.

Improvements so far in version 16
More in depth information can be found through the following links about the 16 release. Visit the other announcements listed below for previous beta fixes.

• Kodi 16.0 Final release
https://kodi.tv/kodi-16-0-jarvis-mark-xvi/


Kodi 16.1 “Jarvis” – Release Candidate 2
28 Mar

Once a ‘final’ version is released some new bugs and/or problems usually appear out of nowhere, and this release is no exception. Even though tens of thousands of users were already testing the 16.0 version before release and we as team trying very hard to prevent any problems, as soon as millions start using the released version some problems we either did not think of or which we did not notice before pop up. To counter some of these new issues, we’re bringing you this maintenance release candidate called 16.1 RC2 which has some additional fixes on top of the 16.0

This is still a release candidate; once enough users have verified that these improvements work out well, and we did not introduce any major regressions, we’ll be releasing it as final 16.1 version. To be safe just backup your userdata (online manual) first.

It should be ok to just install this on top of your current Kodi 16.0 version. For the MySQL users out there; we never bump the database versions in our bugfix or maintenance releases – you can safely keep using it within your network.

Fixes done in this RC 2 version
• Never cache addons directories
• Fix typo when calculating forced ratio size
• AndroidStorageProvider: Ignore /mnt/runtime and don’t call Exists all the way every some 500 ms as this will affect performance
• Set of fixes for DirectX rendering
• Fixed crash under JSON-RPC on iOS/OSX
• 20% performance gain on opening EPG guide window
• Add missing libgif.so to the Android package
• Fix Kodi freezing if no ADSP add-on is present
• EventServer security fix by only allowing localhost
Fixes done in this RC 1 version
• Fix possible lockup when entering EPG grid
• Fix possible problems with rendering on Windows
• Fix possible non working key presses after a key long press
• Don’t do a video chapter skip if there’s only one chapter
• Fix possible lock up by increasing timeout to let screensavers properly exit
• Fix render capture (bookmark images) on certain hardware with DXVA on Windows
• Fix problem in ZeroConfBrowser that could cause problems on exit
• Fix crash one OSX 10.7 when trying to resolve HDD names
• Fix possible crashes when using VAAPI and DXVA video rendering
The complete technical list can be found on our Github milestones.
https://github.com/xbmc/xbmc/milestones?direction=desc&sort=due_date&state=closed


Kodi 16.0 – Jarvis – Mark XVI
21 Feb

We are proud to announce the release of Kodi 16.0. Kodi 16 is a heavy under-the-hood improvements release, but let’s review some of the more prominent features coming out.

Event Logging
The first big step in making Kodi better at communicating with you, the user, is the addition of event logging. With this feature you always have a constantly updating list of all the most important things Kodi has done recently, along with little issues you can fix. For example, when you scan in a library for the first time, the Even Logger will provide you with a list of videos that didn’t quite make it into the library, each one of which is clickable, so you can go straight to the offending video and fix it personally.

Event logging

You’ll also get a constant list of all recently updated add-ons, so if a recent update breaks, you’ll know the update happened and can then easily rollback.

Long Press
More and more hardware companies are coming out with remote controls with a very limited button set. In particular, all current Android TVs are lacking a dedicated context menu button altogether. To deal with this, we’ve taken a page from the touchscreen UX and added a long press feature to remote controls. Now, if you press and hold the OK/Enter button for a few seconds, you will pull up the context menu. In the future, long press may be extended for additional functionality. For a better view of what this means, see the following video.



4:3 Non-linear Stretch
It’s perhaps a bit late in coming, but Kodi finally supports stretching 4:3 content to 16:9 in a way that doesn’t warp the content that’s occurring in the center of the screen. Finally, you’ll be able to watch Friends, Seinfeld, Cheers, and Duck Tales in full screen without the awkward screen stretching from the past.

screenshot000

Add-on Manager Changes
In the ongoing quest to improve our our add-on manager several changes were done in the overall handling of each add-on. These changes include the following:

• The roll-back button on add-on info panel has been replaced by Update
• The Update button now opens a list of available versions of the add-on. Should you have several repositories installed that offer different version of this add-on you can now choose which to install.
• You can now disable auto-update per add-on through the info panel individual from others.
The add-on info panel can either be reached through the add-on manager or selecting the add-on in any section by either right click, use context menu (“C” key or long-press OK) and choose info or use the “I” key to directly open the panel.


Music Library Improvements
The music library has rarely received the same support as Kodi’s video library, and this release begins to change that. In the past, adding music to Kodi’s library required extra steps after simply pointing Kodi to the music folders. Now Kodi will attempt to automatically scan the music files into the Kodi music library. For music files to be scanned correctly, they will need to be properly tagged. To read more, visit the Kodi Beta3 blogpost.

Platform Specific Changes
DirectX 11 upgrade

DX11Developer afedchin has gone through the long and arduous process of updating Kodi to DirectX 11, which brings with it support for modern tools and modern graphics cards, while maintaining backwards compatibility with old DirectX 9 cards. This major shift will help Kodi for Windows stay up to date for a long time to come.

Android Surface Rendering

Some newer devices that can do UHD or 4K playback lack the power to also create the Kodi interface at a 4K resolution, and this creates a problem. We have been forced either to downscale the video to a lower resolution to make sure the interface was snappy, or show full size video but the device might not be able handle the high resolution interface. We’ve now altered the way we display Kodi on Android. The video is always displayed on one Android surface while the UI is displayed on a second Android surface. This allows Kodi to display its skin at its native resolution (typically 720p), while simultaneously displaying 4K video on the same screen.

It is important to mention is that this doesn’t apply to AMLogic devices with proper permissions as these will still use amcodec. Any other Android device that is not able to do “android surface rendering” has not implemented the standard Android MediaCodec API in the proper way and will need to be upgraded on the Android-side to support the new feature.

Other Important Changes:
• Start of integration of ADSP (Audio Digital Signal Processing) handling (no add-ons shipped yet)
• Improve image resizing and caching algorithm to improve image quality of images
• Added support for the musicbrainz “ARTISTS” tag in id3v2, ape, xiph.
• Add date added to music library and use it for sorting
• Support saving skin settings as add-on data instead of in guisettings.xml
• Image resource add-ons which provides common image libraries than can be used by several skins and add-ons.
• Don’t mess with the long and short date formats defined in the language files
• Win32: Proper 24.0/60.0 Hz refresh rate in fake fullscreen mode
• Add sort method for albums “artist / year”. This will sort the albums chronological per artist.
• Moved some add-on categories to “look and feel” in add-on manager
• Series recording added for PVR
• Add a “none” option for preferred subtitles
• Properly handle wired or bluetooth headsets on Android and only use PCM output
• Fix playback of VP9 and VC1 video codecs on Android
• Use best possible icons from other Android apps while browsing these in Kodi
• Enable true 1920×1080 output on AMLogic device without up-scaling
• Add Korean, Chinese and Czech keyboards
• Add multi-touch support for Linux platform
• Improve touch-screen keymapping
• The item that you had previously chosen will now be selected in the selection list instead of just starting at the top of the list
• Decouple Kodi and system volume on Android which removes the double audio volume slider
• Karaoke support has been completely removed as it wasn’t functional
• Further improve DX11 implementation in Windows
• iOS9 support
• Various PVR fixes and improvements
• Various improvements to the music section
• Three finger touchpad mapping in iOS to make room for new tablet gestures which will be available in Alpha 4 to complement existing tablet gestures.
• Kodi now supports being compiled with Xcode 7
• The Kodi GUI now supports a new stereoscopic depth effect for users of Kodi on 3D TVs or VR headsets
• Add stereoscopic depth for Confluence skin
• Extended support for browsing movies by country and through UPnP as well as user-ratings which we be added in future versions.
An enormous list of improvements
Besides the list above there has been a lot of work done in all areas in our source code. Removing old code, splitting up parts in more logical chunks and making it all more resilient to future changes. All these changes are part of a massive change list that only makes sense to developers actually knowing what the source code does. In short we will no bother you all with summing up the list. It’s just something that is worth mentioning that not all improvements have to be actual features and are visible to users. We prefer that the program actually works than adding bells and whistles.


Kodi 16.0 “Jarvis” – Release Candidate 3
04 Feb

It’s time for the third Release Candidate for Kodi v16. With this release candidate we added a small number of fixes that users brought to our attention. Since we only have a small team and we can’t test it all we must rely on users reporting potential problems on our forum and we try to fix them within our limited spare time. All in all this release is looking like it’s quite solid so far.

Some of you commented on several occasion that we should first fix the “known problems” in our previous versions before jumping to the next one. The fact is that fixing those problems correctly is such an undertaking that we simply can’t keep working on the previous one. Our team vision is to keep moving forward and along the way release version for users to use and enjoy that are considered stable enough. We don’t force people to upgrade so if you like an older Kodi version for some reason just keep using it. This vision is known as Release Early Release Often (RERO) on which we’ll make a more in depth review soon.

Fixes done in Release Candidate 3:

• Fix some possible DVD menu problems
• Fix selection of stacked multiple ISO files (movie.disc1.iso, movie.disc2.iso, movie.disc3.iso etc)
• Fix navigation in EPG grid when there’s channels have no EPG data available
• Add missing MOOD tag scanning for FLAC/Ogg/Xiph/Vorbis, ASF and MP4/iTunes like other file format
• Use local icon stored icon instead of downloading a new one when for the add-on update notification
• Fix CPU feature check on Android for newer kernels
• Fix not correctly selecting items in a list when list is updated or going to next page
• Fix “renderloop” crashes on Windows
• Fix accidental repeated button presses with long-press feature
• Added French AZERTY keyboard


Kodi 16.0 “Jarvis” – Release Candidate 2
29 Jan

It’s time for the second Release Candidate for Kodi v16. Getting the first release candidate ready took a bit longer than we anticipated due to some problems along the way though they should be under control now. With this second release candidate we added a small number of fixes that users brought to our attention. Since we only have a small team and we can’t test it all we must rely on users reporting potential problems on our forum and we try to fix them within our limited spare time. All in all this release is looking like it’s quite solid so far.

Some of you commented on several occasion that we should first fix the “known problems” in our previous versions before jumping to the next one. The fact is that fixing those problems correctly is such an undertaking that we simply can’t keep working on the previous one. Our team vision is to keep moving forward and along the way release version for users to use and enjoy that are considered stable enough. We don’t force people to upgrade so if you like an older Kodi version for some reason just keep using it. This vision is known as Release Early Release Often (RERO) on which we’ll make a more in depth review soon.

Fixes done in this release compared to Release Candidate 1:

• Additional fixes done on saving setting when switching between different profiles
• Increase time-out when searching for audio devices on Windows which solves some cases of Kodi not starting
• Fix crash when unplugging USB devices
• Fix crash when choosing Add Timer in EPG window
Please report any problems on our forum http://forum.kodi.tv and not on the release announcement.

With that said lets focus on some things that have been changed and added which are noticeable for the end users.

What did change in Kodi 16:

• Implement the more future proof DirectX11 for Windows which still works for DirectX9 video cards;
• Event logging which among others shows which video files didn’t got added to your library;
• Skin settings are now stored as separate files like any other add-on which makes migrating settings a lot easier;
• Image resource add-ons which provide a single point of entry for skins to share common used images like movie studio icons and record labels which saves quite a lot of space and bandwidth;
• Audio DSP (Digital Signal Processing) add-on integration and are already included which could make things possible like equalizers, sound processing, fake surround and more
• PVR/DVR section has been extended and improved massively which now also handles series recording
• Music library improvements which includes asking to scan to library when adding locations and also better tag scanning
• Button long-press which extends the functionality of a single button to handle two functions which is great for button deprived remotes
• User interface now supports a new stereoscopic depth effect for 3D TVs or VR headsets
• Extend the UPnP server/client integration between Kodi installations
• Android now support a Surface Rendering which keeps the interface at normal HD resolution while allows playback of 4K on supported devices
• Removal of the infamous libstagefright on Android which served us for the past years while the Android platform matured to a fully fetaured MediaCodec
• Add-on manager underwent heavy changes which includes slightly different structure, per add-on auto-update on/off switch, better update/rollback support to choose from repos,
• Extend the included keyboard layouts which includes Korean and Chinese
• Improved multi-touch support which now also works on Linux
• Gives skin developers a more reliable platform to work from and reduce amount of work for adapting to new Kodi versions
• Greatly improved audio and video playback in general


Kodi 16.0 “Jarvis” – Release Candidate 1
21 Jan

The time has come to bring you all Release Candidate 1 for Kodi v16. It took a bit longer than we anticipated due to some problems along the way though they should be under control now. This release consists of some nice features but more importantly the continues effort on making the underlying code more mature and future proof which should result in a more stable Kodi in general.

Some of you commented on several occasion that we should first fix the “known problems” in our previous versions before jumping to the next one. The fact is that fixing those problems correctly is such an undertaking that we simply can’t keep working on the previous one. Our team vision is to keep moving forward and along the way release version for users to use and enjoy that are considered stable enough. We don’t force people to upgrade so if you like an older Kodi version for some reason just keep using it. This vision is known as Release Early Release Often (RERO) on which we’ll make a more in depth review soon.

With that said lets focus on some things that have been changed and added which are noticeable for the end users.

What did change in Kodi 16:

• Implement the more future proof DirectX11 for Windows which still works for DirectX9 video cards;
• Event logging which among others shows which video files didn’t got added to your library;
• Skin settings are now stored as separate files like any other add-on which makes migrating settings a lot easier;
• Image resource add-ons which provide a single point of entry for skins to share common used images like movie studio icons and record labels which saves quite a lot of space and bandwidth;
• Audio DSP (Digital Signal Processing) add-on integration and are already included which could make things possible like equalizers, sound processing, fake surround and more
• PVR/DVR section has been extended and improved massively which now also handles series recording
• Music library improvements which includes asking to scan to library when adding locations and also better tag scanning
• Button long-press which extends the functionality of a single button to handle two functions which is great for button deprived remotes
• User interface now supports a new stereoscopic depth effect for 3D TVs or VR headsets
• Extend the UPnP server/client integration between Kodi installations
• Android now support a Surface Rendering which keeps the interface at normal HD resolution while allows playback of 4K on supported devices
• Removal of the infamous libstagefright on Android which served us for the past year while the Android platform matured to a fully fetaured MediaCodec
• Add-on manager underwent heavy changes which includes slightly different structure, per add-on auto-update on/off switch, better update/rollback support to choose from repos,
• Extend the included keyboard layouts which includes Korean and Chinese
• Improved multi-touch support which now also works on Linux
• Gives skin developers a more reliable platform to work from and reduce amount of work for adapting to new Kodi versions
• Greatly improved audio and video playback in general
Event loggingScan music to library
EPGv16-recordings
ADSP managerADSP Equalizer
v16-addon auto updatev16-keyboards


With the list above we only highlighted some of the more noticeable features. The complete list is huge which could fill several pages. A lot of changes went in Kodi 16 like removing old code, splitting up parts in more logical chunks and making it all more resilient to future changes. All these changes are part of a massive change list that only makes sense to developers actually knowing what the source code does. In short we will not bother you with summing up that list. It’s just something that is worth mentioning that not all improvements have to be actual features and are visible to users. We prefer that the program actually works than adding new bells and whistles. Most of the times new features are just a side effect of cleaning up our code.


Kodi 16.0 beta 5 – Last Jarvis beta
11 Jan

With this announcement we are releasing the last beta in the Jarvis line before we are switching to Release Candidates. We hope the feedback from users regarding this beta is positive since we as team can’t test all use cases ourselves. As such we wan’t to thank all the users who helped us find the biggest blockers before we can move towards the Release Candidates.

Why the rapid succession of these releases you might wonder? By doing more releases in the shorter period we reduce the amount of changes that are included in each one. Instead of a huge list of changes it now only has several which gives a better overview. The advantage of that is possible regressions get picked up way faster and that you as user also get the benefit of not having to wait a long time to get these fixes.
This Release Early Release Often (RERO) is what we as a team have decided to go forward with as we see the benefits of this approach. Our developers don’t have to wait a very long time before their features get included in a release and you a user will also get to try them out without having to wait many months. Enough about the RERO approach as we’ll soon devote a special review about this.

This we only have a small list of fixes that made it into this last beta.

Fixes done in this beta 5:
• Improved: better remote keymap for longpress functionality
• Fixed: correctly save skin setting when changing profiles
• Fixed: prefer forced subtitle in settings was not working
• Fixed: prevent crash on scanning certain mp3 files
• Fixed: correct numeric input in some PVR windows
• Fixed: better handling of some rotated recorded video files
• Fixed: fixed non working deinterlacer for DXVA on Windows
• Fixed: certain animated GIF files wouldn’t display correctly
• Fixed: a variety of code fixes that are too technical to mention


Kodi 16.0 beta 4 – Jarvis is getting ready #4
13 Dec

With this announcement we are releasing beta 4. Why the rapid succession of these releases you might wonder? By doing more releases in the shorter period we reduce the amount of changes that are included in each one. Instead of a huge list of changes it now only has several which gives a better overview. The advantage of that is possible regressions get picked up way faster and that you as user also get the benefit of not having to wait a long time to get these fixes.

This Release Early Release Often (RERO) is what we as a team have decided to go forward with as we see the benefits of this approach. Our developers don’t have to wait a very long time before their features get included in a release and you a user will also get to try them out without having to wait many months. Enough about the RERO approach as we’ll soon devote a special review about this.

This we only have a small list of fixes that made it into this beta.

Fixes done in this beta 4:
• Fixed: several credentials leaking in the debuglog
• Fixed: fix enabled status for audio DSP add-ons
• Fixed: stop scraping album overriding tags when override tags Disabled
• Fixed: Custom Music Node/Playlist Rule Based Queries
• Fixed: Input.Select for PVR fullscreen windows with JSON-RPC
• Fixed: ghost timers in EPG window
• Fixed: sidemenu now playing buttons in Confluence
• Fixed: mouse handling regression on Android
• Fixed: don’t use cached results for dir checks in our Python API
• Fixed: missing header label on clean EPG progress dialog
• Fixed: [configure] make sure the top kodi src dir is always in INCLUDES


Kodi 16.0 beta 3 – Jarvis is getting ready #3
06 Dec

With this announcement we are releasing beta 3. Why the rapid succession of these releases you might wonder? By doing more more releases in the shorter period we reduce the amount of changes that are included in each one. Instead of a huge list of changes it now only has several which gives a better overview. The advantage of that is possible regressions get picked up way faster and that you as user also get the benefit of not having to wait a long time to get these fixes.

This Release Early Release Often (RERO) is what we as a team have decided to go forward with as we see the benefits of this approach. Our developers don’t have to wait a very long time before their features get included in a release and you a user will also get to try them out without having to wait many months. Enough about the RERO approach as we’ll soon devote a special review about this.

Music library improvements
Well not exactly new but certainly something that got overlooked a lot is getting your music scanned to library. For videos it’s quite obvious there’s a library where you can scan in all your movies and tv show from your local or remote storage. Setting this up is relatively straight forward because when you add a source it immediately asks if you want to add it to the library. For music this was anything but obvious. You add a new music source which contain all your music files and that was it. Although that was how it seemed. Somewhere hidden in the context menu (which you pull up with right or using “C” key) there was an option scan to library. This magically started scanning your music files and reading all the tag data which contain artist, title, year and whatever more in a nicely organised library. Time to make it more obvious.

Add music sourceScan music to library
After you added a new music file source it will now ask you if you want to scan all the files in that folder using the tag data in those files and organise it for you.

Caveates to music library:

• Your music needs to be properly tagged. For example with ID3v1, ID3v2.3, ID3v2.4, Vorbis Comments or APE
• If not properly tagged Kodi can’t properly organise it and things might be completely misplaced.
• Properly tagging music files can be a tedious job however there are several tools for assisting on that: MusicBrainz Picard, Mp3Tag, TagScanner and so on
• Scanning these files could take quite a while before it’s finished depending on the amount
Advantages to music library:

• You will get an awesome looking library view just like for movies and tvshows
• You can search your music files
• Library splits up the music in sections: Genres, Artists, Albums, Singles, All songs, Years, Top 100 (based on your playback), Recently added/played albums, Compilations
• You can split everything up even further using smartplaylists
• You can rate your music and filter based on that
• Since Kodi also acts as UPnP server you can share them over you home-network if the clients support this
• You can scan for additional information like artist biography or album review/synopsis (right click or C key in album or artist library)
• This can be enabled by default in settings -> music -> library -> “Fetch additional information during updates”
• You can change the default language for online information by going to settings -> addon-ons -> my add-ons -> Information providers -> Album or artist information -> open the universal album or artist scraper
Although music library is not yet at the same level as movies or tv shows, there is certainly work being done in this area to make it better. Stay tuned for next version.

Example of tagging your album with MusicBrainz Picard


Fixes done in this beta 3:
• Fixed: non-working touch input in file manager
• Fixed: workaround for MySQL 5.7.x query optimizer changes
• Fixed: remove broken musicvideo scraper
• Fixed: don’t show “sync playback to display” option on Android as it’s not supported
• Fixed: fix codepage for Korean language input
• Fixed: added workaround for triggering repository updates during playback
• Fixed: fix crash in PVR calling the context menu
• Fixed: show OK dialog instead of empty list clicking on the update button in add-on information panel
• Fixed: several coverity and cppcheck code analysis problems
• Fixed: time sometimes jumped backwards on playing bluray m2ts files and fixes stutter on switching files
• Fixed: several issues regarding music library
• Fixed: timer and EPG handling in PVR
• Fixed: crashing on cleaning up events
• Fixed: don’t show brightness/contrast controls when using Android MediaCodec (Surface)
• Fixed: dont invalidate art for addons that are new or not updated since last fetch
• Fixed: Android stylus devices don’t respond on input
• Fixed: segfault when ADSP is enabled in settings
• Fixed: missing art when playing something from a music add-on
• Fixed: variety of cleanups and problems for AMLogic chips
• Fixed: fixed possible directory traversal bug due to insufficient url checking
• Fixed: handling of media key on Android
• Changed: add support for pre-gzipped addons.xml in repositories which should considerably reduce repository traffic
• Changed: remove “add source”from Programs section


Kodi 16.0 beta 2 – Jarvis is getting ready #2
22 Nov

Kodi-Wallpaper-17B-1080p_samfisher
Only a week ago we announced 16.0 beta 1 and with this announcement we are releasing beta 2. Why the rapid succession of these releases you might wonder? By doing more more releases in the shorter period we reduce the amount of changes that are included in each one. Instead of a huge list of changes it now only has several which gives a better overview. The advantage of that is possible regressions get picked up way faster and that you as user also get the benefit of not having to wait a long time to get these fixes.

This Release Early Release Often (RERO) is what we as a team have decided to go forward with as we see the benefits of this approach. Our developers don’t have to wait a very long time before their features get included in a release and you a user will also get to try them out without having to wait many months. Enough about the RERO approach as we’ll soon devote a special review about this.

New in this beta
Well not exactly new but certainly something that got overlooked a lot is getting your music scanned to library. For videos it’s quite obvious there’s a library where you can scan in all your movies and tv show from your local or remote storage. Setting this up is relatively straight forward because when you add a source it immediately asks if you want to add it to the library. For music this was anything but obvious. You add a new music source which contain all your music files and that was it. Although that was how it seemed. Somewhere hidden in the context menu (which you pull up with right or using “C” key) there was an option scan to library. This magically started scanning your music files and reading all the tag data which contain artist, title, year and whatever more in a nicely organised library. Time to make it more obvious.

Add music sourceScan music to library
After you added a new music file source it will now ask you if you want to scan all the files in that folder using the tag data in those files and organise it for you.

Caveates to music library:

• Your music needs to be properly tagged. For example with ID3v1, ID3v2.3, ID3v2.4, Vorbis Comments or APE
• If not properly tagged Kodi can’t properly organise it and things might be completely misplaced.
• Properly tagging music files can be a tedious job however there are several tools for assisting on that: MusicBrainz Picard, Mp3Tag, TagScanner and so on
• Scanning these files could take quite a while before it’s finished depending on the amount
Advantages to music library:

• You will get an awesome looking library view just like for movies and tvshows
• You can search your music files
• Library splits up the music in sections: Genres, Artists, Albums, Singles, All songs, Years, Top 100 (based on your playback), Recently added/played albums, Compilations
• You can split everything up even further using smartplaylists
• You can rate your music and filter based on that
• Since Kodi also acts as UPnP server you can share them over you home-network if the clients support this
• You can scan for additional information like artist biography or album review/synopsis (right click or C key in album or artist library)
• This can be enabled by default in settings -> music -> library -> “Fetch additional information during updates”
• You can change the default language for online information by going to settings -> addon-ons -> my add-ons -> Information providers -> Album or artist information -> open the universal album or artist scraper
Although music library is not yet at the same level as movies or tv shows, there is certainly work being done in this area to make it better. Stay tuned for next version.

Example of tagging your album with MusicBrainz Picard



Fixes done in this beta 2:
• Fixed: Library export now shows the correct dialogs
• Fixed: Don’t include broken add-ons in the update panel which is accessed through add-on information
• Fixed: Next recording widget for PVR
• Fixed: Timer dialog fixes for PVR
• Fixed: Ignore volume changes on corked sink for Pulse
• Fixed: Don’t show repeating timers on PVR recording list
• Fixed: Redact file name in log output for smb://
An enormous list of improvements
A lot of changes went in Kodi 16. Removing old code, splitting up parts in more logical chunks and making it all more resilient to future changes. All these changes are part of a massive change list that only makes sense to developers actually knowing what the source code does. In short we will no bother you all with summing up the list. It’s just something that is worth mentioning that not all improvements have to be actual features and are visible to users. We prefer that the program actually works than adding bells and whistles.


Kodi 16.0 beta 1 – Jarvis is getting ready
15 Nov

Only three weeks ago we announced 15.2 which is the last release of the Kodi version 15 range and now we’re announcing the first beta of version 16. What does this means for users? That after four months of alpha versions we have changed to the beta stage and working towards a final Kodi 16 release. The past four months the developers worked hard behind the scenes on further improving what is already a great piece of software. Lot’s of code clean-up and improving stability, with a dash of features added here and there. To not bore every one with all the technical changes we’ll dive into some of the most noticeable newly added features.

DirectX 11 upgrade
DX11One of our developers afedchin took on this task and completely revised our DirectX 9 implementation and upgraded it to the more current standard of DirectX 11. Don’t worry if you still have an older card, we only use low level features so you don’t need to run to the shop for new gear. So why is this so important? The old DirectX 9 implementation we were still using was done in a way that it could fail for newer videocard drivers. By updating it to DX11 proper support is assured for the newer video cards as well of a whole lot of other improvements across the board. These few lines written here don’t even do the work done on this justice but let me assure you it was of great importance for the existence of Kodi on the Windows platform.

screenshot001

4:3 Non-linear Stretch
It’s perhaps a bit late in coming, but Kodi finally supports stretching 4:3 content to 16:9 in a way that doesn’t warp the content that’s occurring in the center of the screen. Finally, you’ll be able to watch Friends, Seinfeld, Cheers, and Duck Tales in full screen without the awkward screen stretching from the past.

screenshot000

Event logging
Have you ever added your folder of movies to Kodi and then discovered, sometimes weeks later, that a movie never made it in? A solution for issues like that is finally starting to take shape.

Event logging is an option that tracks some events and shows these in a chronological order in system settings -> logging. By the time of the final release of Kodi 16, we will still have not refined what will actually be shown in that list as it currently only adds the basic “notifications”. Ultimately, we think this may become an incredibly useful feature, as you’ll finally be able to see all of the things Kodi is doing and, in some cases, failing to do. More to follow on this feature in Kodi version 17.

EventLogging01EventLogging02
Split up skin settings
One long awaited change is splitting up skin settings from the core Kodi settings. In the past all skin settings and Kodi settings were saved in one big file. What’s the problem you might ask? Well fact is that the more skins you installed and tried out the bigger the file grew all loading it takes a tiny bit of time. Additionally it wasn’t easy to start fresh with Kodi settings without also losing all you skin customisations. Now all is split up like we already had done for all other add-ons, you can now easily remove Kodi settings and keep the skins settings intact. Additionally you can also just copy the skin/add-on settings to any other Kodi installation and they would instantly have the same settings as you had given the fact you also have installed them there. On upgrade from any previous Kodi or XBMC version to 16.0 we will process and convert the file without you even noticing. All will be done automatically.

More information: http://kodi.wiki/view/Userdata -> “user_data”

Image resource add-ons
Although not of real importance to end-users, it’s really convenient for our skin developers. Before each skin had to include all the images it wanted to show. For example most skins show the studio or recordlabel when browsing library. Each skin would have to include these images for it work and as such each skin would have to update the included images. On average this came down to about ~20Mb of files that were shipped with each skin. By putting that into separate add-ons all skins can now make use of the same resource add-ons if they wish without needing to care for updating the images any more. This cuts down download size of skins on install/update and the image add-ons can be updated separate from the skins itself. This makes handling skins much easier and less resource intensive.

Long Press
More and more hardware companies are coming out with remote controls with a very limited button set. In particular, all current Android TVs are lacking a dedicated context menu button altogether. To deal with this, we’ve taken a page from the touchscreen UX and added a long press feature to remote controls. Now, if you press and hold the OK/Enter button for a few seconds, you will pull up the context menu. In the future, long press may be extended for additional functionality. For a better view of what this means, see the following video.



Android Surface Rendering
The Android platform has always been a bit special as it’s still maturing and this change shows that. Some newer devices that can do UHD or 4K playback really well lack the power to also create the Kodi interface at that resolution, and this creates kind of a problem. The end result was that the we either had to downscale the video to a lower resolution to make sure the interface was snappy, or show full size video but the device might not be able handle the high resolution interface. This change allows us to create the Kodi user-interface in a different resolution than the resolution we do video playback, so what happens now is that the interface is displayed at 1080p, and the video will actually be output at the 4K resolution if the device supports it as we let the chip-set do the work instead of the processor.

Important to mention is that this doesn’t apply to AMLogic devices with proper permissions as these will still use amcodec. Any other Android device that is not able to do “android surface rendering” has not implemented the standard Android MediaCodec API in the proper way. Sadly we have to take this route because the Android eco-system has become too big of a maze to support and we will only implement what we feel is the way forward, this means that we will only follow the official Android platform methods, and we will no longer implement any hacks or workarounds. If the device you have is not compatible, then we strongly advise that you ask your device manufacturer to properly implement these functions in the device’s firmware, it may be harsh but we as Team Kodi are not responsible for incomplete firmware created by these device manufacturers.

Removal of libstagefright
With the Android platform becoming more mature regarding audio/video with the MediaCodec implementation it was time to say goodbye to libstagefright. The old implementation for audio and video is called libstagefright and has been in the media several times this year, this method has become very outdated and the implementation wasn’t the best, as such we have removed the support for this and will fully focus on MediaCodec. This means that for certain devices this will be a step back for Kodi usage, or perhaps Kodi might even become unusable if they have firmware which doesn’t make proper use MediaCodec. We’re sorry that this is happening but keeping support for libstagefright is hurting further progress, stability and puts a too large support burden on the our Android developer, so we hope you will all understand this decision.

Add-on manager changes
In the ongoing quest to improve our our add-on manager several changes where done in the overall handling of each add-on. These changes include the following:

• Roll-back button on add-on info panel has been replaced by Update
• The Update button now opens a list of available versions of the add-on. Should you have several repositories installed that offer different version of this add-on you can now choose which to install.
• You can now disable auto-update per add-on through the info panel individual from others.
The add-on info panel can either be reached through the add-on manger or selecting the add-on in any section by either right click, use context menu (“C” key) and choose info or use the “I” key to directly open the panel.


Goodbye karaoke
Sadly we had to say goodbye to the karaoke feature that was hidden in Kodi. None of the team did really know how it worked, if it still worked and how it was integrated into Kodi. Because it was still part of Kodi every skin also had to support this feature which takes quite some work. As such we decided to remove it as whole. It may reappear back in the future because there are now better ways of integrating it back as an add-on. It would only take a developer some interest in getting this done.

Other Important Changes:
• Start of integration of ADSP (Audio Digital Signal Processing) handling (no add-ons shipped yet)
• Improve image resizing and caching algorithm to improve image quality of images
• Added support for the musicbrainz “ARTISTS” tag in id3v2, ape, xiph.
• Add date added to music library and use it for sorting
• Support saving skin settings as add-on data instead of in guisettings.xml
• Image resource add-ons which provides common image libraries than can be used by several skins and add-ons.
• Don’t mess with the long and short date formats defined in the language files
• Win32: Proper 24.0/60.0 Hz refresh rate in fake fullscreen mode
• Add sort method for albums “artist / year”. This will sort the albums chronological per artist.
• Moved some add-on categories to “look and feel” in add-on manager
• Series recording added for PVR
• Add a “none” option for preferred subtitles
• Properly handle wired or bluetooth headsets on Android and only use PCM output
• Fix playback of VP9 and VC1 video codecs on Android
• Use best possible icons from other Android apps while browsing these in Kodi
• Enable true 1920×1080 output on AMLogic device without up-scaling
• Add Korean, Chinese and Chech keyboards
• Add multi-touch support for Linux platform
• Improve touch-screen keymapping
• Add stereoscopic depth for Confluence skin
• The item that you had previously chosen will now be selected in the selection list instead of just starting at the top of the list
• Decouple Kodi and system volume on Android which removes the double audio volume slider
• Karaoke support has been completely removed as it wasn’t functional
• Further improve DX11 implementation in Windows
• iOS9 support
• Various PVR fixes and improvements
• Various improvements to the music section
• Three finger touchpad mapping in iOS to make room for new tablet gestures which will be available in Alpha 4 to complement existing tablet gestures.
• Kodi now supports being compiled with Xcode 7
• The Kodi GUI now supports a new stereoscopic depth effect for users of Kodi on 3D TVs or VR headsets
• The Music Library and Files View for music have now been unified, similar to how video files and library are unified
• Extended support for browsing movies by country and through UPnP as well as user-ratings which we be added in future versions.
An enormous list of improvements
Besides the list above there has been a lot of work done in all areas in our source code. Removing old code, splitting up parts in more logical chunks and making it all more resilient to future changes. All these changes are part of a massive change list that only makes sense to developers actually knowing what the source code does. In short we will no bother you all with summing up the list. It’s just something that is worth mentioning that not all improvements have to be actual features and are visible to users. We prefer that the program actually works than adding bells and whistles.


Kodi 16.0 Alpha 4 – Jarvis nearing completion
01 Nov

Only two weeks ago we announced 15.2 which is the last release of the Kodi version 15 range and now we’re announcing the last alpha of version 16. What does this means for users? That after four months of alpha versions we are gearing up for changing to the beta stage and working towards a final Kodi 16 release. The past four months the developers worked hard behind the scenes on further improving what is already a great piece of software. Lot’s of code clean-up and improving stability, with a dash of features added here and there. To not bore every one with all the technical changes we’ll dive into some of the most noticeable newly added features.

Android Surface Rendering
The Android platform has always been a bit special as it’s still maturing and this change shows that. Some newer devices that can do UHD or 4K playback really well lack the power to also create the Kodi interface at that resolution, and this creates kind of a problem. The end result was that the we either had to downscale the video to a lower resolution to make sure the interface was snappy, or show full size video but the device might not be able handle the high resolution interface. This change allows us to create the Kodi user-interface in a different resolution than the resolution we do video playback, so what happens now is that the interface is displayed at 1080p, and the video will actually be output at the 4K resolution if the device supports it as we let the chip-set do the work instead of the processor.

Important to mention is that this doesn’t apply to AMLogic devices with proper permissions as these will still use amcodec. Any other Android device that is not able to do “android surface rendering” has not implemented the standard Android MediaCodec API in the proper way. Sadly we have to take this route because the Android eco-system has become too big of a maze to support and we will only implement what we feel is the way forward, this means that we will only follow the official Android platform methods, and we will no longer implement any hacks or workarounds. If the device you have is not compatible, then we strongly advise that you ask your device manufacturer to properly implement these functions in the device’s firmware, it may be harsh but we as Team Kodi are not responsible for incomplete firmware created by these device manufacturers.

Removal of libstagefright
With the Android platform becoming more mature regarding audio/video with the MediaCodec implementation it was time to say goodbye to libstagefright. The old implementation for audio and video is called libstagefright and has been in the media several times this year, this method has become very outdated and the implementation wasn’t the best, as such we have removed the support for this and will fully focus on MediaCodec. This means that for certain devices this will be a step back for Kodi usage, or perhaps Kodi might even become unusable if they have firmware which doesn’t make proper use MediaCodec. We’re sorry that this is happening but keeping support for libstagefright is hurting further progress, stability and puts a too large support burden on the our Android developer, so we hope you will all understand this decision.

Add-on manger changes
In the ongoing quest to improve our our add-on manager several changes where done in the overall handling of each add-on. These changes include the following:

• Roll-back button on add-on info panel has been replaced by Update
• The Update button now opens a list of available versions of the add-on. Should you have several repositories installed that offer different version of this add-on you can now choose which to install.
• You can now disable auto-update per add-on through the info panel individual from others.
The add-on info panel can either be reached through the add-on manger or selecting the add-on in any section by either right click, use context menu (“C” key) and choose info or use the “I” key to directly open the panel.


Goodbye karaoke
Sadly we had to say goodbye to the karaoke feature that was hidden in Kodi. None of the team did really know how it worked, if it still worked and how it was integrated into Kodi. Because it was still part of Kodi every skin also had to support this feature which takes quite some work. As such we decided to remove it as whole. It may reappear back in the future because there are now better ways of integrating it back as an add-on. It would only take a developer some interest in getting this done.

Additional Fixes/Changes
Here’s a quick look at a few other notable fixes and features.

• Properly handle wired or bluetooth headsets on Android and only use PCM output
• Fix playback of VP9 and VC1 video codecs on Android
• Use best possible icons from other Android apps while browsing these in Kodi
• Enable true 1920×1080 output on AMLogic device without up-scaling
• Add Korean, Chinese and Chech keyboards
• Add multi-touch support for Linux platform
• Improve touch-screen keymapping
• Add stereoscopic depth for Confluence skin
• The item that you had previously chosen will now be selected in the selection list instead of just starting at the top of the list
• Decouple Kodi and system volume on Android which removes the double audio volume slider
• Karaoke support has been completely removed as it wasn’t functional
• Further improve DX11 implementation in Windows
• iOS9 support
• Various PVR fixes and improvements
• Various improvements to the music section
Needless to say, this is not the entire list of fixes and features for Alpha 4, but that list is quite long and tends to focus on under-the-hood items that are mostly of interest to other devs, skinners, and add-on writers. As these under-the-hood changes begin to work their way up to the user experience, we’ll do our best to detail them here.


Kodi 15.2 Isengard – Final Chapter
19 Oct

Once a ‘final’ version is released some new bugs and/or problems usually appear out of nowhere, and last release was no exception. Even though tens of thousands of users were already testing the 15.0 version before release and we try very hard to prevent them, as soon as million started using it, some problems we either did not think of or which we did not notice popped up. To counter some of these new issues, we’re bringing you this second maintenance release 15.2 which has some additional fixes on top of the 15.0 and 15.1 release.

It should be ok to just install this on top of your current Kodi 15.0 or 15.1 version. For the MySQL users out there; we never bump the database versions in our bugfix or maintenance releases – you can safely keep using it within your network. To be safe just backup your userdata (online manual) first.

Most important fix done
Over time the Android version has travelled some bumpy roads. This is due to the fact there are tens of thousands of different devices out there with each it’s own Android version and each a slightly different firmware and hardware. Firmware is the part where the manufacturer of the device has to make sure the everything works as it should like audio and video output. This time after the 15.0 release it became clear that for several devices using an Amlogic chipset there was a change in firmware that caused Kodi to not function properly and only show a zoomed in or only used part of the screen. Devices that came from manufacturers that had properly updated their firmware did not have this problem. However for some this never happened and caused all the problems you might have experienced. One method was to put special build firmware on the device which fixes the problem and Kodi would just work fine again. Sadly this is a quite technical process and could brick your device if not done properly. Luckily a community developer invested a lot of time in tracking down the problem and together with our main Android developer came to a solution for fixing this.

In short, we’ve solved the problems for the users that had the zoomed in or partial screen using Kodi in Android. As such we included these changes into the 15.2 build for every one to test and hopefully get their device working again.

Secondly some playback problem popped up for many Android users where they lost video after fast-forward playback. This should now have been correct as well.

Fixes done in this 15.2 version

• Fix non DVB subtitles
• Fix incompatible MySQL queries
• Improvements on PulseAudio for Linux
• Fix multi images in grouplists/layouts
• Updated PVR add-ons: Tvheadend HTSP and MythTV
• Fix refresh-rate switching on Android. This should improve on most devices like Nexus Player and NVIDIA SHIELD TV and others which use the Android API


• Fix file time used in scanning library which may speed up scanning times on 32bit platforms
• Fix video rewind on Windows. May still leave artifacts for some seconds.
• Fix continues check on system partitions on Android
• Fix MicroDVD subtitles
• Fix subtitles positioning below video
• Fix memory leak on opening Bluray menu for stream selection
• Fix default sorting for songs over UPnP
• Updated taglib that fixes a crash when playing flac files
• Fix volume adjustment for XBOX controllers
• Fixes side flyout appearing when using touch
• Fixes freeze on win32 on away mode
• Fix crash on osx 10.7 when trying to resolve hdd names
• Fix Amlogic zoom problems on Android
• Set default screen region for dvb subs (wrong placed subtitles)
• Fix missing lyrics from tag when playing from musicdb url
• Properly set the time format when setting/changing regions
• Fix playback problems on AMLogic after ffwd or skip
• Fix fallback for nb_no language
• Fix empty LatestAlbum.Artist
• Fix watched flag in Confluence media info 3 view
The complete technical list can be found on our Github milestones.
https://github.com/xbmc/xbmc/issues?q=milestone%3A%22Isengard+15.2%22+is%3Aclosed


Kodi 15.2 Isengard – Release Candidate 3
04 Oct

Once a ‘final’ version is released some new bugs and/or problems usually appear out of nowhere, and last release was no exception. Even though tens of thousands of users were already testing the 15.0 version before release and we try very hard to prevent them, as soon as million started using it, some problems we either did not think of or which we did not notice popped up. To counter some of these new issues, we’re bringing you this second maintenance release candidate called 15.2 RC3 which has some additional fixes on top of the 15.0 and 15.1 release.

This is still a release candidate; once enough users have verified that these improvements work out well, and we did not introduce any major regressions, we’ll be releasing it as final 15.2 version. To be safe just backup your userdata (online manual) first.

It should be ok to just install this on top of your current Kodi 15.0 or 15.1 version. For the MySQL users out there; we never bump the database versions in our bugfix or maintenance releases – you can safely keep using it within your network.

Most important fix done
Over time the Android version has travelled some bumpy roads. This is due to the fact there are tens of thousands of different devices out there with each it’s own Android version and each a slightly different firmware and hardware. Firmware is the part where the manufacturer of the device has to make sure the everything works as it should like audio and video output. This time after the 15.0 release it became clear that for several devices using an Amlogic chipset there was a change in firmware that caused Kodi to not function properly and only show a zoomed in or only used part of the screen. Devices that came from manufacturers that had properly updated their firmware did not have this problem. However for some this never happened and caused all the problems you might have experienced. One method was to put special build firmware on the device which fixes the problem and Kodi would just work fine again. Sadly this is a quite technical process and could brick your device if not done properly. Luckily a community developer invested a lot of time in tracking down the problem and together with our main Android developer came to a solution for fixing this.

In short, we’ve solved the problems for the users that had the zoomed in or partial screen using Kodi in Android. As such we included these changes into the 15.2 RC build for every one to test and hopefully get their device working again.

Secondly some playback problem popped up for many Android users where they lost video after fast-forward playback. This should now have been correct as well (if you had not yet got the extra Play Store update for 15.1).

Should you still experience problems with this build please provide feedback on our forum or in this 15.2 specific test thread: link Be sure to provide sufficient information.

Fixes done in this RC 3 version

• Fix non DVB subtitles
• Fix incompatible MySQL queries
• Improvements on PulseAudio for Linux
• Fix multi images in grouplists/layouts
• Updated PVR add-ons: Tvheadend HTSP and MythTV
• Fix refresh-rate switching on Android. This should improve on most devices like Nexus Player and NVIDIA SHIELD TV and others which use the Android API


Fixes done in this RC 2 version
• Fix file time used in scanning library which may speed up scanning times on 32bit platforms
• Fix video rewind on Windows. May still leave artifacts for some seconds.
• Fix continues check on system partitions on Android
• Fix MicroDVD subtitles
• Fix subtitles positioning below video
• Fix memory leak on opening Bluray menu for stream selection
• Fix default sorting for songs over UPnP
Fixes done in this RC 1 version

• Updated taglib that fixes a crash when playing flac files
• Fix volume adjustment for XBOX controllers
• Fixes side flyout appearing when using touch
• Fixes freeze on win32 on away mode
• Fix crash on osx 10.7 when trying to resolve hdd names
• Fix Amlogic zoom problems on Android
• Set default screen region for dvb subs (wrong placed subtitles)
• Fix missing lyrics from tag when playing from musicdb url
• Properly set the time format when setting/changing regions
• Fix playback problems on AMLogic after ffwd or skip
• Fix fallback for nb_no language
• Fix empty LatestAlbum.Artist
• Fix watched flag in Confluence media info 3 view
The complete technical list can be found on our Github milestones.
https://github.com/xbmc/xbmc/issues?q=milestone%3A%22Isengard+15.2%22+is%3Aclosed


Kodi 15.2 Isengard – Release Candidate 2
20 Sep

Once a ‘final’ version is released some new bugs and/or problems usually appear out of nowhere, and last release was no exception. Even though tens of thousands of users were already testing the 15.0 version before release and we try very hard to prevent them, as soon as million started using it, some problems we either did not think of or which we did not notice popped up. To counter some of these new issues, we’re bringing you this second maintenance release candidate called 15.2 RC2 which has some additional fixes on top of the 15.0 and 15.1 release.

This is still a release candidate; once enough users have verified that these improvements work out well, and we did not introduce any major regressions, we’ll be releasing it as final 15.2 version. To be safe just backup your userdata (online manual) first.

It should be ok to just install this on top of your current Kodi 15.0 or 15.1 version. For the MySQL users out there; we never bump the database versions in our bugfix or maintenance releases – you can safely keep using it within your network.

Most important fix done
Over time the Android version has travelled some bumpy roads. This is due to the fact there are tens of thousands of different devices out there with each it’s own Android version and each a slightly different firmware and hardware. Firmware is the part where the manufacturer of the device has to make sure the everything works as it should like audio and video output. This time after the 15.0 release it became clear that for several devices using an Amlogic chipset there was a change in firmware that caused Kodi to not function properly and only show a zoomed in or only used part of the screen. Devices that came from manufacturers that had properly updated their firmware did not have this problem. However for some this never happened and caused all the problems you might have experienced. One method was to put special build firmware on the device which fixes the problem and Kodi would just work fine again. Sadly this is a quite technical process and could brick your device if not done properly. Luckily a community developer invested a lot of time in tracking down the problem and together with our main Android developer came to a solution for fixing this.

In short, we’ve solved the problems for the users that had the zoomed in or partial screen using Kodi in Android. As such we included these changes into the 15.2 RC build for every one to test and hopefully get their device working again.

Secondly some playback problem popped up for many Android users where they lost video after fast-forward playback. This should now have been correct as well (if you had not yet got the extra Play Store update for 15.1).

Should you still experience problems with this build please provide feedback on our forum or in this 15.2 specific test thread: link Be sure to provide sufficient information.

Fixes done in this RC 2 version

• Fix file time used in scanning library which may speed up scanning times on 32bit platforms
• Fix video rewind on Windows. May still leave artifacts for some seconds.
• Fix continues check on system partitions on Android
• Fix MicroDVD subtitles
• Fix subtitles positioning below video
• Fix memory leak on opening Bluray menu for stream selection
• Fix default sorting for songs over UPnP
Fixes done in this RC 1 version

• Updated taglib that fixes a crash when playing flac files
• Fix volume adjustment for XBOX controllers
• Fixes side flyout appearing when using touch
• Fixes freeze on win32 on away mode
• Fix crash on osx 10.7 when trying to resolve hdd names
• Fix Amlogic zoom problems on Android
• Set default screen region for dvb subs (wrong placed subtitles)
• Fix missing lyrics from tag when playing from musicdb url
• Properly set the time format when setting/changing regions
• Fix playback problems on AMLogic after ffwd or skip
• Fix fallback for nb_no language
• Fix empty LatestAlbum.Artist
• Fix watched flag in Confluence media info 3 view
The complete technical list can be found on our Github milestones.
https://github.com/xbmc/xbmc/issues?q=milestone%3A%22Isengard+15.2%22+is%3Aclosed


Kodi 15.2 Isengard – Release Candidate
28 Aug

Once a ‘final’ version is released some new bugs and/or problems usually appear out of nowhere, and last release was no exception. Even though tens of thousands of users were already testing the 15.0 version before release and we try very hard to prevent them, as soon as million started using it, some problems we either did not think of or which we did not notice popped up. To counter some of these new issues, we’re bringing you this second maintenance release candidate called 15.2 RC1 which has some additional fixes on top of the 15.0 and 15.1 release.
This is still a release candidate; once enough users have verified that these improvements work out well, and we did not introduce any major regressions, we’ll be releasing it as final 15.2 version. To be safe just backup your userdata (online manual) first.
It should be ok to just install this on top of your current Kodi 15.0 or 15.1 version. For the MySQL users out there; we never bump the database versions in our bugfix or maintenance releases – you can safely keep using it within your network.

Most important fix done
Over time the Android version has travelled some bumpy roads. This is due to the fact there are tens of thousands of different devices out there with each it’s own Android version and each a slightly different firmware and hardware. Firmware is the part where the manufacturer of the device has to make sure the everything works as it should like audio and video output. This time after the 15.0 release it became clear that for several devices using an Amlogic chipset there was a change in firmware that caused Kodi to not function properly and only show a zoomed in or only used part of the screen. Devices that came from manufacturers that had properly updated their firmware did not have this problem. However for some this never happened and caused all the problems you might have experienced. One method was to put special build firmware on the device which fixes the problem and Kodi would just work fine again. Sadly this is a quite technical process and could brick your device if not done properly. Luckily a community developer invested a lot of time in tracking down the problem and together with our main Android developer came to a solution for fixing this. Past week we provided some special builds on the forum which solved the problems for the users that had the zoomed in or partial screen using Kodi. As such we included these changes into the 15.2 RC build for every one to test and hopefully get their device working again. Secondly some playback problem popped up for many Android users where they lost video after fast-forward playback. This should now have been correct as well (if you had not yet got the extra Play Store update for 15.1).

Should you still experience problems with this build please provide feedback on our forum or in this 15.2 specific test thread: link Be sure to provide sufficient information.

Fixes done in this RC 1 version

• Updated taglib that fixes a crash when playing flac files
• Fix volume adjustment for XBOX controllers
• Fixes side flyout appearing when using touch
• Fixes freeze on win32 on away mode
• Fix crash on osx 10.7 when trying to resolve hdd names
• Fix Amlogic zoom problems on Android
• Set default screen region for dvb subs (wrong placed subtitles)
• Fix missing lyrics from tag when playing from musicdb url
• Properly set the time format when setting/changing regions
• Fix playback problems on AMLogic after ffwd or skip
• Fix fallback for nb_no language
• Fix empty LatestAlbum.Artist
• Dix watched flag in Confluence media info 3 view


Kodi 15.1 Isengard – Maintenance release
16 Aug

Kodi Isengard System 15.0
Once a ‘final’ version is released some new bugs and/or problems usually appear out of nowhere, and last release was no exception. Even though tens of thousands of users were already testing the 15.0 version before release, as soon as million started using it, some problems we either did not think of or which we did not notice popped up. To counter some of these new issues, we’re bringing you this maintenance release called 15.1 which has some additional fixes on top of the 15.0 release. To be safe just backup your userdata (online manual) first.
It should be ok to just install this on top of your current Kodi 15.0 version. For the MySQL users out there; we never bump the database versions in our bugfix or maintenance releases – you can safely keep using it within your network. For additional information about version 15 or upgrading you can visit our Frequently Asked Questions page.

We will continue to solve some remaining issues and release it as a next point release in the 15.x range.

Fixes done in this 15.1 version

• Flush renderbuffers when flushing video player
• Fix broken network.bandwidth setting
• Fix stuttering in PVR windows
• Fix holding lock while querying PVR backend
• Unsigned apps are not working on jailbroken iOS 5.1 devices
• Add installed languages to the list of possible stream languages
• Ensure that file descriptor for logfile is NULL’ed
• Fixes a crash when trying do delete a file in filemanager
• Reimplement Cocoa_GetVolumeNameFromMountPoint for OSX
• Update label color for sliderex controls
• CProgressJob: fix crash in DoModal
• Fix missing return in CGUIWindowPVRBase::OnBack
• FFmpeg: Bump to 2.6.4
• Handle startup splash as regular window
• Fix linkage for VTB framework for iOS < 6 – fixes VTB on iOS
• Fix broken native keyboard on iOS 5.1.1 devices
• Fix wrong navigation in SmartPlaylistEditor.xml
• Make some virtual filesystems available when no network is available yet
• Fix formatting on mysql queries that could cause crash on update
• Only set mouse wheel control spin and slider controls when they are actually focusses
• Respect view mode changes of EPG when controlling number of EPG updates
• Handle startup splash as regular window which prevent problems if PVR or masterlock is used as startup window
• Fix watched flag not displaying if item is also resume-able
• Remove some logging on exiting that could crash on exit in some cases
• Fix overlapping subtitles in some cases
The complete technical list can be found on our Github milestones.
https://github.com/xbmc/xbmc/milestones?direction=desc&sort=due_date&state=closed


Kodi 15.1 Isengard – Release Candidate
10 Aug

Once a ‘final’ version is released some new bugs and/or problems usually appear out of nowhere, and last release was no exception. Even though tens of thousands of users were already testing the 15.0 version before release, as soon as million started using it, some problems we either did not think of or which we did not notice popped up. To counter some of these new issues, we’re bringing you this maintenance release candidate called 15.1 RC1 which has some additional fixes on top of the 15.0 release.
This is still a release candidate; once enough users have verified that these improvements work out well, and we did not introduce any major regressions, we’ll be releasing it as final 15.1 version. To be safe just backup your userdata (online manual) first.
It should be ok to just install this on top of your current Kodi 15.0 version. For the MySQL users out there; we never bump the database versions in our bugfix or maintenance releases – you can safely keep using it within your network.

We will continue to solve some remaining issues and release it as a next point release in the 15.x range.

Fixes done in this RC 1 version

• Flush renderbuffers when flushing video player
• Fix broken network.bandwidth setting
• [pvr] fix stuttering introduced
• Unsigned apps are not working on jailbroken iOS5.1 devices
• Add installed languages to the list of possible stream languages
• Ensure that file descriptor for logfile is NULL’ed
• [pvr] fix holding lock while querying backend
• Fixes a crash when trying do delete a file in filemanager
• Reimplement Cocoa_GetVolumeNameFromMountPoint
• [guilib] update label color for sliderex controls
• CProgressJob: fix crash in DoModal
• [pvr] fix missing return in CGUIWindowPVRBase::OnBack
• FFmpeg: Bump to 2.6.4
• Handle startup splash as regular window
• [ios] – fix linkage for VTB framework for ios < 6 – fixes vtb on ios
• [ios] – fix broken native keyboard on ios 5.1.1 devices
• fix wrong navigation in SmartPlaylistEditor.xml

See https://github.com/xbmc/xbmc/commits/Isengard


Kodi 15.0 – Isengard – One Release to Rule Them All
21 Jul

We are proud to announce the release of Kodi 15.0. No new name this time around, but many new features that cover requests both more than 5 years old and less than 5 months old. Let’s take a quick look at a few.

Kodi for Android
Perhaps the biggest news for Kodi 15 isn’t a feature at all, but rather the official release of Kodi for Android in the Google Play store. As of the time of this writing, there are just over 400,000 active installs from Google Play after having been released a mere 36 days ago. You can install Kodi for Android from the download link below.

Get it on Google Play





You are also welcome to continue sideloading it from the Kodi downloads page.

In terms of Kodi for Android specific features, 4K, refreshrate switching, and HEVC playback are now available on devices with hardware that support those features including a number of Amlogic based devices and the NVIDIA Shield Android TV, though it should be noted that Android 5.0 and above is required to take advantage of these features.

Kodi 15.0 Features
Across platforms, Kodi itself has gained quite a lot of features. Some notable examples include:

• A new chapter selector window – Allows you to visually browse and select chapters from mkvs and other containers that support chapters.



• Adaptive seeking (aka Skip Steps) – The more times you press a button to seek in a period of time, the larger the jump forward or backward will be.



• Audio and Subtitle Lists – For content that includes multiple audio and subtitle choices, you can select from a full list of choices, rather than manually searching through a spinner.

screenshot001

• Language Add-ons and Expanded International Preferences – Now language translations aren’t dependent upon release, but get regularly updated to all users as the add-ons themselves update. Additionally, you now have total control over date, time, temperature and more displayed formats.

screenshot002

• Improved Add-on Manager – The add-on manager has now been reworked to help make finding the add-ons you are looking for easier.

screenshot002

Additional Improvements and Changes
Other improvements include:

• ffmpeg 2.6.3 update
• Improved Closed Captioning support in Live TV
• Fixed music video queuing
• Allow scanning of new sources and marking as watched during other library operations such as “update library”
• Windows DXVA HEVC hardware decoding support if driver and hardware support exist
And more. See release notes for RC2, RC1, Beta2 and Beta1 for a full list.
Changes from 14.2 to 15.0 include:

• Minimal 10.7 Lion 64-bit required on Mac OSX
• Minimal iOS 5.1 required and ATV2 support discontinued
• Minimum Android 4.2 Jelly Bean MR1 required on Android
• Ubuntu 12.04 support dropped in PPA
• On Android the system now handles the volume instead of Kodi
• Removed the need for root/SU on Android. Some hardware/firmware might not like that. Please contact your hardware supplier
• Removal of Tuxbox support. Users of Enigma2 boxes can use the VUPlus PVR add-on
• Removal of AFP filesystem support
• Remove legacy code pre-Frodo 11.0
• Vast amount of possible memory leaks, segfaults, crashes and minor issues have been fixed
• General improvements regarding code stability and performance in all areas
• General code clean-up in all areas to simplify adding future features


Kodi 15.0 Isengard – RC 2
11 Jul

Here it is, the second Release Candidate (RC) built for Kodi 15.0; freshly baked and ready to be served! Although we said that Kodi 15.0 is a “clean-up” edition, we still managed to squeeze in a couple of really nice features. So far we had around 1080 code change requests which were included since Kodi 14.2. This vast amount sums up in a pretty big list of improvements and clean-up being done by various developers for which we should show our everlasting gratitude. As such we will only highlight some of the bigger changes further on. Download link is also provided at the bottom.

Google Play
Without a doubt the biggest news this year has been that Kodi is now available in Google Play. You can download it at the previous link or using the following QR code.





The benefits of installing the Google Play version of Kodi are fairly simple. You always get the most recent stable release without needing to mess with finding, downloading, and sideloading apks. With that said, we will continue to publish apks on our site, so if you’d rather sideload, or if your Android device doesn’t have Google Play, we’ve still got you covered. You should be able to install the Play Store version on top of your current Kodi install without any problems.

Fixes done since RC 1 version

• Fix endless loop in PVR section which causes high CPU load
• Fix crash on opening conext menu item
• Fix sorting by episodes
• Don’t try to use hardware decoding for h264/10bit video files (don’t confuse with h265/10bit)
• Fix playback of certain HEVC files
• Avoid freezing/deadlock in peripheralmanager
• Fix genres in smartplaylists
• Fix grouping by artists in smartplaylists
• Fix video calibration for Android
• Make sure to download the OBB file when Play Store doesn’t
• Some other technical changes….
Biggest changes in 15.0 so far

Let’s continue with some of the changes that have been done since last stable release. As already mentioned, this is only a very tiny part of the list.

• Minimal 10.7 Lion 64-bit required on Mac OSX
• Minimal iOS 5.1 required and no more ATV2
• Minimum Android 4.2 Jelly Bean MR1 required on Android
• Various improvements in PVR section. This includes skin support and new PVR add-ons
• Complete video database clean-up session on stored data (no data will be lost). This may take some time on first run
• ffmpeg 2.6.2 update which bring better codec compatibility and playback
• Improved CC (Closed Captions) support for Live TV
• Fix the queuing of music videos
• Improvement of FF/RW (fast-forward / rewinding) of videos
• Improved logic to make PVR, audio encoders and audio decoders optional
• Fix of grouping movie sets when navigating in smartplaylists
• External subtitles over UPnP can be enabled through the settings section
• Allow scanning of new sources and marking as watched during other library operations such as “update library”
• Allow different sort orders for different sort methods
• Skip steps (step forward & backwards) improvements for videos and music
• Add jump to first unwatched in TV section
• Fix subtitles showing on top of each other in certain cases
• Reworked add-on manager that should give a better overview
• Chapter selection window that shows thumbs on where to skip to in the video
• Easier to navigate audio and subtitle selection list
• Show progress for add-on repository update
• Addition of language add-ons which allow us to update the User-Interface text outside of regular Kodi releases
• Immediately fetch updates from repository after Kodi version upgrade to prevent delay in getting better compatible add-ons or skins
• Expansion of international options like time and date format, temperature and speed units.
• Improvement of installing new skins selection
• Upgrade included webserver which should fix issues with iOS or Android remotes loosing connections
• Fix season art scraping on newly added seasons
• On Android the system now handles the volume instead of Kodi
• Android HEVC H.265 support for some chipsets
• Refreshrate switching on Android 5.0 opr higher (your device must have the proper implementation of these features to support it)
• 4K@60Hz playback on the NVIDIA SHIELD Android TV
• Reworked the storage provider on Android. This fixes several problems with mounting points for storage.
• Remove default 250ms audio delay on Android for AMLogic chipsets. You may need to adjust the delay again
• Remove certain codecs from our core code and made add-ons out of them. So called Audio encoders/decoders
• Removed the need for root/SU on Android. Some hardware/firmware might not like that. Please contact your hardware supplier
• Removal of Tuxbox support. Users of Enigma2 boxes can use the VUPlus PVR add-on
• Removal of AFP filesystem support
• Remove legacy code pre-Frodo 11.0
• Vast amount of possible memory leaks, segfaults, crashes and minor issues have been fixed
• General improvements regarding code stability and performance in all areas
• General code clean-up in all areas to simplify adding future features
The complete technical list can be found on our Github milestones.
https://github.com/xbmc/xbmc/milestones?direction=desc&sort=due_date&state=closed


Kodi 15.0 Isengard – RC 1
02 Jul

Here it is, the first Release Candidate (RC) built for Kodi 15.0; freshly baked and ready to be served! Although we said that Kodi 15.0 is a “clean-up” edition, we still managed to squeeze in a couple of really nice features. So far we had around 1050 code change requests which were included since Kodi 14.2. This vast amount sums up in a pretty big list of improvements and clean-up being done by various developers for which we should show our everlasting gratitude. As such we will only highlight some of the bigger changes further on. Download link is also provided at the bottom.

Google Play
Without a doubt the biggest news this year has been that Kodi is now available in Google Play. You can download it at the previous link or using the following QR code.





The version currently available on Google Play is Isengard 15.0 RC 1 (could take some time before it’s available as servers update). We’ve decided to go with Isengard instead of Kodi 14.2 as the first release for Google Play, because it is dramatically more prepared for the feature set that modern Android devices like the Nexus Player and the NVIDIA Shield Android TV bring to the table, including support for 4K and HEVC, among other things.

The benefits of installing the Google Play version of Kodi are fairly simple. You always get the most recent stable release without needing to mess with finding, downloading, and sideloading apks. With that said, we will continue to publish apks on our site, so if you’d rather sideload, or if your Android device doesn’t have Google Play, we’ve still got you covered. You should be able to install the Play Store version on top of your current Kodi install without any problems.

Biggest changes in 15.0 so far

Let’s continue with some of the changes that have been done since last stable release. As already mentioned, this is only a very tiny part of the list.

• Minimal 10.7 Lion 64-bit required on Mac OSX
• Minimal iOS 5.1 required and no more ATV2
• Minimum Android 4.2 Jelly Bean MR1 required on Android
• Various improvements in PVR section. This includes skin support and new PVR add-ons
• Complete video database clean-up session on stored data (no data will be lost). This may take some time on first run
• ffmpeg 2.6.2 update which bring better codec compatibility and playback
• Improved CC (Closed Captions) support for Live TV
• Fix the queuing of music videos
• Improvement of FF/RW (fast-forward / rewinding) of videos
• Improved logic to make PVR, audio encoders and audio decoders optional
• Fix of grouping movie sets when navigating in smartplaylists
• External subtitles over UPnP can be enabled through the settings section
• Allow scanning of new sources and marking as watched during other library operations such as “update library”
• Allow different sort orders for different sort methods
• Skip steps (step forward & backwards) improvements for videos and music
• Add jump to first unwatched in TV section
• Fix subtitles showing on top of each other in certain cases
• Reworked add-on manger that should give a better overview
• Chapter selection window that shows thumbs on where to skip to in the video
• Easier to navigate audio and subtitle selection list
• Show progress for add-on repository update
• Addition of language add-ons which allow us to update the User-Interface text outside of regular Kodi releases
• Immediately fetch updates from repository after Kodi version upgrade to prevent delay in getting better compatible add-ons or skins
• Expansion of international options like time and date format, temperature and speed units.
• Improvement of installing new skins selection
• Allow scanning of new sources and marking as watched during other library operations such as “update library”
• Upgrade included webserver which should fix issues with iOS or Android remotes loosing connections
• Fix season art scraping on newly added seasons
• On Android the system now handles the volume instead of Kodi
• Android HEVC H.265 support for some chipsets
• Reworked the storage provider on Android. This fixes several problems with mounting points for storage.
• Remove default 250ms audio delay on Android for AMLogic chipsets. You may need to adjust the delay again
• Remove certain codecs from our core code and made add-ons out of them. So called Audio encoders/decoders
• Removed the need for root/SU on Android. Some hardware/firmware might not like that. Please contact your hardware supplier
• Removal of Tuxbox support. Users of Enigma2 boxes can use the VUPlus PVR add-on
• Removal of AFP filesystem support
• Remove legacy code pre-Frodo 11.0
• Vast amount of possible memory leaks, segfaults, crashes and minor issues have been fixed
• General improvements regarding code stability and performance in all areas
• General code clean-up in all areas to simplify adding future features
The complete technical list can be found on our Github milestones.

https://github.com/xbmc/xbmc/milestones?direction=desc&sort=due_date&state=closed


Kodi 15.0 Isengard – Beta 2
14 Jun

Here it is, the second beta build for Kodi 15.0; freshly baked and ready to be served! A little later than originally planned though, which we’ll explain later. Although we said that Kodi 15.0 a “clean-up” edition, we still managed to squeeze in a couple of really nice features. In total we had ~180 code change requests which were included since last beta release. All this sums up in a pretty big list of improvements and clean-up. As such we will only highlight some of the bigger changes.

Database clean-up
This was the actual reason for the beta 2 delay. With each Kodi release we do several database changes and as such need to upgrade the structure a bit. During last beta 1 release a problem arose that had been present during the past years but never really showed up as a problem, until now. As you add your media to the Kodi library we gather related information about the movies and shows from several websites like TheMovieDB and TheTVdb. It became clear that this data wasn’t always in the format we expected it to be. Some examples are additional spaces, line ending codes or wrong characters before and after actors, directors and such. The result was that some of these values were added as duplicates into the database as they didn’t have a perfect match each time. With the changes done in the last months this became a bigger problem for each database upgrade we do. This was reason enough to tackle this problem properly and do a clean-up session on current database version and make sure that new data is properly formatted before adding in new added video content. This clean-up session is a one time action for each device or MySQL database for this 15.0 release.

IMPORTANT: Depending on the size of your current library and the devices you are currently using, it may take some time before this process is completed. Especially people using the Raspberry-Pi and/or using MySQL libraries. Please do not turn off the device during initial start after this upgrade and wait till it’s finished. It may take from one second to one or two minutes before the database is migrated. This is a one time migration.

Refresh rate switching and 4K Playback on Android
One of the limitations of the Android platforms always was that it wasn’t capable of switching your screen to the same refresh-rate as the current playing video. This could cause a slight video stutter occasionally as video frames had to be duplicated to keep audio in sync. Since Android 5.0 there’s at least a way to set the preferred refresh-rate of the video output that could solve several of these problems. Do note that this feature is still in early stage and also needs proper firmware implementation of the device manufacturers. This could mean that your device only supports one mode while others support several. So this feature really depends on the combination of the Android devices and the connected display output. Do note that it’s “preferred refresh-rate” and not “force refresh-rate“. This means that we can only indicate what we would like and then it’s up to the device if it actually will do this. To make use of this feature you need to manually enable “Adjust display refresh rate” which can be found in settings -> video -> playback. You may need to to alter the settings level before this becomes visible.

TearsOfSteel4k

With the rise of all the new 4K content, playback devices and displays, having proper 4K playback on Android is becoming a more and more nice thing to have. Although true 4K implementation for applications like Kodi is only planned in Android M, one of our developer found a way to at least incorporate this for the Android 5.0 platform. With the help of the people from NVIDIA and their newly released SHIELD Android TV we can now say Kodi will do it’s user interface and video playback in full 4k@60Hz should your device support this.

IMPORTANT: The improvements mentioned will require that you at least use Android 5.0 and your devices must have the proper implementation of these features to support it.

Adaptive seeking
The Step Forward, Step Back and Small Step Back actions are now forwarded to a new seeking function that is configurable in the GUI via the Skip steps and Skip delay settings. It allows single skip steps backwards and forwards with the left and right cursor keys as before, however a new feature is that by pressing the left and right keys multiple times you can skip with increasingly larger steps. Another feature of this new seeking function is that music files can also now can make use of skip steps. You can watch this short YouTube video for a quick explanation:



For more on this see http://kodi.wiki/view/Skip_Steps

Improvements in 15.0 beta 2 since the release of beta 1

• Bump libCEC to 3.3.0 which fixes a variety of problems
• Reworked the storage provider on Android. This fixes several problems with mounting points for storage.
• Fix the queuing of music videos
• Improvement to FF/RW of videos
• Improvement to picons in livetv
• Prevention of clipping of rotated text, which happened in certain skins
• Improved logic to make PVR, audio encoders and audio decoders optional.
• Audio decoder and PVR add-ons are now disabled by default. When you want to use these you need to enable them manually.
• Fix launching of add-ons from the add-on information dialog
• Show progress for add-on repository update
• Properly fall back to the new language files location
• Fix of grouping movie sets when navigating in smartplaylists
• Fix wrong icon showing in popup dialogs
• Restore volume after pass-through on Android
• Combine previously split GUI text into a single string. This improves ability to properly translate them.
• Included newer version of several PVR add-ons
• Fix incorrect fall-back language after we made them into add-ons
• Fix 8channel audio conversion on Windows
• Try to detect supported sample rates on Android
• Do a complete video database clean-up session to remove leading/trailing spaces and invalid characters
• Prevent inserting leading/trailing spaces and invalid characters on new video scans
• Add season and episode labels to PVR section
• Fix possible font corruption
• Remove default 250ms audio delay on Android for AMLogic chipsets
• Fix subtitles showing on top of each other in certain cases


Kodi 15.0 Isengard – Beta 1
01 May

Here it is, the first beta build for Kodi 15.0; freshly baked and ready to be served! We could call Kodi 15.0 a “clean-up” edition due to the lack of any prominent features and due to the massive spring cleaning we have been doing during the past months. Although some nice new features have been added, the majority of work was done cleaning up the vast complexity of code that was built up over the years. Though we still have a long way to go.

Some of you might feel that we are releasing the new beta quite soon after the 14.2 stable release, however this is part of our plan. We intend to release more often with smaller features. This way the changes are more manageable and we can quicker squash any bugs that get left behind into next release.

Let’s talk about what we’ve done.

Improvements so far

There were about 780 requests that contained multiple fixes, features, and improvements that went into the current 15.0 beta release. All these changes should sum up in an even better user experience while using Kodi. We could start summing up all the changes but there’s really no point in doing so. Instead will make a quick selection of the most important changes done.

* Reworked add-on manger that should give a better overview
* Chapter selection window that shows thumbs on where to skip to in the video
* Easier to navigate audio and subtitle selection list
* Addition of language add-ons which allow us to update the User-Interface text outside of regular releases
* Expansion of international options like time and date format, temperature and speed units.
* Skip steps (step forward & backwards) improvements.
* Tuxbox removal. Users of Enigma2 boxes can use the VUPlus PVR add-on
* Split PVR add-ons into separate projects which should allow updates through repo in the future
* Fix season art scraping on newly added seasons
* Immediately fetch updates from repository after Kodi version upgrade
* Improvement of installing new skins selection
* Remove legacy code pre-Frodo 11.0
* Add jump to first unwatched in TV section
* Remove certain codecs from our core code and made add-ons out of them. Audio encoders/decoders
* Removal of AFP filesystem support
* Windows DXVA HEVC hardware decoding support if driver and hardware support exist
* Added adaptive seeking through audio and video playback, also know as “skip steps”
* Android HEVC H.265 support for some chipsets
* Improve webserver caching control
* External subtitles over UPnP can be enabled through the settings section
* Allow scanning of new sources and marking as watched during other library operations such as “update library”
* Allow different sort orders for different sort methods
* Start of integration binary add-ons and changing the build system around it
* Improved CC (Closed Captions) support for Live TV
* ffmpeg 2.6.2 update
* Removal remaining SDL code which was used in some areas.
* Changed code to C++11
* Variety of memleaks, segfaults, crashes and minor issues fixed
* Rescrape season art for newly added seasons
* Upgrade included webserver which should fix issues with remotes loosing connections
* On Android the system now handles the volume
* General improvements regarding code stability and performance in all areas
* General code clean-up in all areas to simplify adding future features
* Mac OSX
- Minimal 10.7 Lion required
- Only OSX 64-bit builds provided by us, so no more 32bit builds
- Minimal MacOSX 10.10 SDK
* iOS
- Minimal iOS 5.1 required
- Minimal iOS 8.1 SDK
- No more ATV2 builds
* Android
- Minimum Android 4.2 Jelly Bean MR1 required
- Android API 17 as minimum with SDK 14 and NDK 10e
- Removed the need for root/SU on Android. Some hardware/firmware might not like that. Please contact your hardware supplier
- Android PIL packaging fixed
and much more…


Kodi 15.0 Isengard – Alpha 2
01 Apr

In many ways, we could call Isengard the release that finally answers many of the oldest requests we have. With Alpha1 we introduced Skip Steps, which allow the user to more naturally and organically find the exact moment they are attempting to skip to in the show or movie, a request that’s existed since at least 2009. We also implemented external subtitle support over UPnP, another very old feature request. This month, we’ve added a few more.

Chapter Selector Window

It’s gone by a bunch of names in the forum, but one of the oldest requests we’ve had since porting away from the Xbox was for the ability to browse and visually select from the chapters available included in mkv and other files that support chapters. With Isengard, that is finally very possible. When you first launch a movie and navigate to the Bookmarks icon in the Video GUI, Kodi will automatically populate all the necessary bookmarks with the name and a picture of each chapter.

screenshot000
This process currently benefits from having a faster CPU, as the chapter images are generated using software, so the first time you open bookmarks on a new video using something like the Raspberry Pi 1 you may experience some severe hiccups. For this reason, this setting is disabled by default on slower devices. To enable visual chapters on slower devices, visit System -> Video -> File lists and select Extract chapter thumbnails. For speedy HTPCs, this setting is enabled by default.

Audio and Subtitle Lists

Many BluRay movies include a large number of audio and subtitle streams to choose from, including numerous director’s commentaries, alternative language tracks, etc. In the past, the user was forced to to slowly scroll through them, one item at a time, using something called a software spinner. Now, these streams are listed as one big list, so the user can easily find and select exactly the stream they are looking for.

screenshot001
Language Add-ons and an Expansion of International Options

Another big improvement with Isengard will be a far more precise control over most of the International settings, including the ability to individually adjust how your date and time are set, whether your temperature is listed as Fahrenheit, Celsius, or even Kelvin, and how you want the speed of your wind measured in the weather add-on.

screenshot002

Additionally, languages are now installed on a just-in-time basis. Rather than shipping with every possible language and needing to wait between releases for language updates, languages in Kodi have been add-on-ified so that changes can be fixed and updated almost instantly. This does mean that if you want to set up a new install of Kodi with anything other than the default English language, you will need to have your machine connected to the internet, so Kodi can download your preferred language.

Add-on Manager Improvements

Finally, work is being done presently to improve and simplify navigating the Add-on Manager. This will be an ongoing project, so please bear with us.

screenshot003

Other Improvements

There were 241 fixes, features, and improvements for Alpha2. Beyond the highlighted ones, here is a list of a few other improvements made.

* Tuxbox removal. Users of Enigma2 boxes can use the VUPlus PVR add-on
* Split PVR add-ons into separate projects
* Fix season art scraping on newly added seasons
* Immediately fetch updates from repository after major upgrade
* Improvement of installing new skins selection
* Remove legacy code pre-Frodo 11.0
* Add jump to first unwatched in TV section
* Remove certain codecs from our core code and made add-ons out of them. Audio encoders/decoders
* Removal of AFP filesystem support
* Windows DXVA HEVC hardware decoding support if driver and hardware support exist
The Kodi Villain Shirt
This release coincides with the release of our Kodi Villain shirt and hoodie. We’re pretty excited about both and hope you like them too.


Kodi 14.2 Helix – The Final Translation
28 Mar

We are proud to announce Kodi 14.2. This marks the final point release before we move on to Kodi 15 “Isengard.”

As you may all know by now, we have a new name, a new logo, and a wide variety of new features, but underneath the new coat of paint remains the same software we all love. 14.2 is the the second and final bug-fix release in the Helix range. Below you will find a list of fixes so far. In the Kodi 14.1 release announcement you can find the sum up of previous fixes done in the Helix range. For a list of major features in Kodi 14, see our Kodi 14 release announcement.

14.2 Fixes
* Fix: Application stopped responding on Windows
* Fix: Gap-less playback on MP3
* Fix: Playback of rtmp protocol
* Fix: Scanning of newly added episodes
* Fix: Fix multipath source scanning
* Fix: Loading external subtitles in some cases
* Fix: packaging of PIL module on Android. This fixes some script error when using weather add-on
* Fix: Fix video playback on all platform after refresh rate change
* Fix: Various bugs that were present in PVR add-ons.
* Fix: Save weather location
* Fix: Fix filtering of foreign add-ons
* Fix: ftps handling
* Fix: use LastWrite instead of ChangeTime for file system on Windows
* Feature: Bump OSX SDK to 10.10


Kodi 14.1 Helix Bugfix release

We are proud to announce the release of Kodi 14.1, which comes with a new name, a new logo, and a wide variety of new features, but underneath the new coat of paint remains the same software we all love. This is the first small bugfix release in the Helix range. As we have mention in our Kodi 14.0 release announcement, we will be releasing these to squash down any issues left after the first final release. Below you will find a list of fixes so far.

Fixes so far
* Fix incorrect video screensize on Android AML devices
* Fix: potential segfault when silencing audio
* Fix: do not skip streaminfo if format is not know.
* Fix: DXVA flickering on AMD
* Fix: prevent possible over-flow in ALSA
* Fix: possible sorting problems in library
* Fix: possible problem in library navigation
* Fix: don’t scroll text when it’s set to not do it
* Fix: scroll text if it’s too long on spinner controls
* Fix: don’t overlap PVR search labels
* Fix: bug in DLNA client string on iOS
* Fix: updated several PVR add-ons
* Fix: remember played state of video when started from recently added
* Fix: correct vsync on OSX
* Fix: broken keyboard input
* Fix: prevent crash on circular dependencies of add-ons
* Fix: large file support on Android
* Fix: random exiting on Android x86 builds (Nexus Player for example)
Windows
Finally, there remain a few known bugs in Kodi 14.1 for Windows. However this should affect only a tiny portion of the users. In very rare cases Windows users may experience a Kodi crash. In such cases please disable the webserver in settings. The developers are working on finding the underlying cause of this and hope is on the horizon. However because this is quite a deeply buried problem we are unlikely to be able to fix it for the 14.x series. We will make certain it will be fixed for 15.0. For more info and test-builds regarding this issue visit this forum thread

A Few Warnings and Notices
This release marks the switch to the new name Kodi. When you install this releases , your library and add-ons will be moved to Kodi, making reverting back to 13.2 fairly difficult. As such, it is recommended that you back up your library as well as your settings before installing Kodi.

If you are using a skin other than the default Confluence, it is possible that you may find the software keyboard blank as a result of the previously mentioned keyboard layout upgrade. If so, you need to either switch to a new skin, or see if your skin has a Helix update. While Kodi automatically checks for addon and skin updates, you can speed up this process by visiting the addons browser from the settings menu and selecting “Check for updates.”

Also, as Kodi is an unsigned application on OSX, you may need to go through a slightly different process to start it the first time. After you have copied Kodi to the Applications folder, you will need to “right click” or “two finger click” Kodi from within the Applications folder and select “Open” and then accept the warning. You should only need to do this the first time you run Kodi.

Finally, there remain a few known bugs in Kodi 14.0 that should affect only a tiny portion of the population. In very rare cases Windows users may experience a Kodi crash. In such cases please disable the webserver in settings. We hope to have these issues resolved by the inevitable Kodi 14.1 release.


Kodi 14.0 Helix Unwinds
23
Dec

Kodi_Xmas
Merry Christmas and happy holidays, everyone! We are proud to announce the release of Kodi 14.0, which comes with a new name, a new logo, and a wide variety of new features, but underneath the new coat of paint remains the same software we all love.

A detailed changelog for Kodi 14 can be found under milestones on our code repository, should you be interested. With that said, let’s take a look at some of the features that come with Kodi 14.0.

The Next Generation of Video Codecs
ffmpeg-logoTo begin, Kodi has been updated to use FFmpeg 2.4.4. For users, this means Kodi will now be capable of playing back h.265 (also known as HEVC) and VP9 video codecs. The use of HEVC and VP9 could result in dramatically smaller video files sizes with exactly the same level of quality. A 40 GB file could be compressed to 20 GB. Users with particularly large libraries or interest in 4K video may be especially likely to appreciate this update. Software support for the VP9 video codec is also included.

The caveat to this update is that the decoding of h.265 is entirely software based. This means most low power systems, such as those operating Android or iOS, may struggle compared to the heftier HTPCs or Intel NUCs and ZOTAC ZBOXes that are running desktop and laptop processors.

Library Improvements
The Kodi Library is getting improvements both coming in and going out. On the input side, library scanning is receiving a massive speed boost, which should make the initial scan on Android and iOS devices quite a bit more spritely.

On the output side, work continues, slowly but surely, on UPnP. Kodi is now significantly more compatible with servers like PlayOn and MediaBrowser, as client-related bugs have been dealt with. Further, communication between Kodi UPnP clients and Kodi UPnP servers continues to improve with proper or additional support for categories like date added, ratings, votes, and artwork, along with sorting for those new categories. UPnP search functions are also slowly working their way into Kodi.

More User Control Over Kodi
Two new features have been introduced with Kodi that should give users even more control over how the software works. First, users can now prevent add-ons from updating without a forced update, prevent add-on update notifications, or simply continue to work with add-ons auto-updating as they do today. To change add-on update settings, visit the Add-ons folder in System Settings; then, if you are using Confluence, open the side panel by clicking the left button or arrow on your keyboard or remote. The Add-ons side panel includes a number of options in addition to update settings, such as the option to hide any add-ons that aren’t expected to work in your region.

Second, in the past the virtual keyboard on the screen that users of tablets and remote controls are forced to deal with has always been set to the western standard QWERTY style. It is now possible to change the layout to a variety of other language options. To do so, visit the International section of the Appearance folder in System Settings and select Keyboard layouts. (Pro-tip: If you are an English speaker living in the US, Australia, or New Zealand, you can also select a version of English that better suits your spelling style from the Language portion of the International section.)

Android, iOS, and embedded
retouchedOn the Android side, hardware playback improvements continue, including more and better support for various chipsets, improved fast forward and rewind capability, as well as 4K support for the AMLogic s802 chipset. On the iOS side, Airplay, which was fairly substantially broken by the update to iOS 7, appears to be almost entirely fixed on every platform save Android, which lacks certain software support, making Airplay playback only partially fixed on that platform. Additionally, support for the Freescale i.MX6 SystemOnChip has been added.

Furthermore, for you tablet users we’ve now replaced the ageing Touched skin with the improved Re-Touched skin, which includes a number of tweaks to bring it more in line with the features Kodi has to offer.

Windows, OSX, and Linux
All three platforms continue to see improvements in audio playback and a reduction of many audio-related bugs that have been plaguing the platforms for a long time. Windows also sees improvement in DXVA video playback.

On the Linux side, we’re excited to give our thanks to the team at Intel and particularly Chris Wilson at Intel who helped solve a Linux firmware bug that was causing crashes for Kodi after a certain period of time. Additionally, users of Kodi for Linux on Intel devices such as the NUC and Chromebox will now have hardware deinterlacing of Live TV and other interlaced content thanks to Kodi’s new implementation of VAAPI video post processing for Intel graphics. See this thread for more info.

PVR
PVR windows in Kodi have been rebuilt to be better and more efficient. Also, American PVR users, specifically, may be happy to learn that Kodi 14 finally introduces support for ATSC sub-channels.

A Few Warnings and Notices
This release marks the switch to the new name Kodi. When you install this release candidate, your library and add-ons will be moved to Kodi, making reverting back to 13.2 fairly difficult. As such, it is recommended that you back up your library as well as your settings before installing Kodi.

If you are using a skin other than the default Confluence, it is possible that you may find the software keyboard blank as a result of the previously mentioned keyboard layout upgrade. If so, you need to either switch to a new skin, or see if your skin has a Helix update. While Kodi automatically checks for addon and skin updates, you can speed up this process by visiting the addons browser from the settings menu and selecting “Check for updates.”

Also, as Kodi is an unsigned application on OSX, you may need to go through a slightly different process to start it the first time. After you have copied Kodi to the Applications folder, you will need to “right click” or “two finger click” Kodi from within the Applications folder and select “Open” and then accept the warning. You should only need to do this the first time you run Kodi.

Finally, there remain a few known bugs in Kodi 14.0 that should affect only a tiny portion of the population. In very rare cases Windows users may experience a Kodi crash. In such cases please disable the webserver in settings. We hope to have these issues resolved by the inevitable Kodi 14.1 release.


Kodi 14.0 Helix – Release candidate 3
09
Dec

Although we announced our first release candidate not long ago, we’re proud to release our third one in the 14.0 Helix range. Some might find it odd that we do so many releases in this short period of time. We can assure you that this is by intention. By doing more rapid releases we get better feedback if changes done by our developers are actually affective and thus create a better final release.

This 14.0 release brings many updates and changes, not the least of which is the change to the software’s name and logo. The release candidate cycle will also be the first to include the official logo of Kodi! The ins and outs about the logo can be read here in case you are interested. A detailed changelog can be found under milestones on our code repository, should you be interested. With that said, let’s take a look at some of the features that come with the 14.0 release candidate.

Changes
Below we will give a snapshot of the most important fixes done since the first release candidate.

* Bump FFmpeg to 2.4.4
* Fix problem with setting content on new and existing video sources
* Fix spinner in video settings for choosing hardware or software decoding
* Fix recording history in PVR
* Separate sort order in PVR window for each directory
* Fix PVR preview video scaling for AMLCodec on Android
* Fix restart option on Win 8.1
* Fix crashes on certain Intel GPU when playing video
* Fix crashes on certain videos on Android 5.0 devices (Nexus Player and ADT-1)
* Fix LPCM (audio/L16) streaming via UPnP
* Use correct art type when appending art to item lists
* Fix python PIL package on Windows that caused crash on weather add-on
* Updated GUI translation files


Kodi 14.0 Helix – Release candidate arives
30
Nov

It’s certainly been a few rough-and-tumble months, but we’re pleased to announce the release candidate cycle for Kodi 14.0 Helix.

This 14.0 release brings many updates and changes, not the least of which being the name and logo of the software. The release candidate cycle will also be the first to include the official logo of Kodi! The ins and outs about the logo can be read here should you be interested.

A detailed changelog can be found under milestones on our code repository, should you be interested. With that said, let’s take a look at some of the features that come with 14.0 release candidate.

The Next Generation of Video Codecs
ffmpeg-logoTo begin, Kodi has been updated to use FFmpeg 2.4.3 For users, this means Kodi will now be capable of playing back h.265 (also known as HEVC) and VP9 video codecs. This could result in dramatically smaller video files sizes with exactly the same level of quality. A 40 GB file could be compressed to 20 GB. A 1 GB file could be compressed to 500 MB without any loss in perceivable quality. Users with particularly large libraries or interest in 4K video may be especially likely to appreciate this update. Software support for the VP9 video codec is also included.

The caveat to this update is that it is entirely software based. This means most low power systems, such as those operating Android or iOS, may struggle compared to the heftier HTPCs or Intel NUCs and ZOTAC ZBOXes that are running desktop and laptop processors.

Library Improvements
The Kodi Library is getting improvements both coming in and going out. On the input side, library scanning is receiving a massive speed boost, which should make the initial scan on Android and iOS devices quite a bit more spiritedly.

On the output side, work continues, slowly but surely, on UPnP. Kodi is now significantly more compatible with servers like PlayOn and MediaBrowser, as client-related bugs have been dealt with. Further, communication between Kodi UPnP clients and Kodi UPnP servers continues to improve with proper or additional support for categories like date added, ratings, votes, and artwork, along with sorting for those new categories. UPnP search functions are also slowly working their way into Kodi.

More User Control Over Kodi
Two new features have been introduced with Kodi that should give users even more control over how the software works. First, users can now prevent add-ons from updating without a forced update, prevent add-on update notifications, or simply continue to work with add-ons auto-updating as they do today. To change add-on update settings, visit the Add-ons folder in System Settings, if you are using Confluence, click left with your keyboard or remote to open the side panel, where a number of options exist, including the option to hide any add-ons that aren’t expected to work in your region.

Second, in the past the virtual keyboard on the screen that users of tablets and remote controls are forced to deal with has always been set to the western standard QWERTY style. It is now possible to change the layout to a variety of other language options. To do so, visit the International section of the Appearance folder in System Settings and select Keyboard layouts. (Pro-tip: If you are an English speaker living in the US, Australia, or New Zealand, you can also select a version of English that better suits your spelling style from the Language portion of the International section.)

Android, iOS, and embedded
retouchedOn the Android side, hardware playback improvements continue, including more and better support for various chipsets, improved fast forward and rewind capability, as well as 4K support for the AMLogic s802 chipset. On the iOS side, Airplay, which was fairly substantially broken by the update to iOS 7, appears to be almost entirely fixed on every platform save Android, which lacks certain software support, making Airplay playback only partially fixed on that platform. Additionally, support for the Freescale i.MX6 SystemOnChip has been added.

Furthermore, for you tablet users, we’ve now replaced the ageing Touched skin with the improved Re-Touched skin, which includes a number of tweaks to bring it more in line with the features Kodi has to offer.

Windows, OSX, and Linux
All three platforms continue to see improvements in audio playback and a reduction of many audio-related bugs that have been plaguing the platforms for a long time. Windows also sees improvement in DXVA video playback.

PVR
American PVR users will be happy to learn that Kodi 14 introduces support for ATSC sub-channels. All users of PVR may be happy to learn that all PVR windows have been rebuilt to be better and more efficient.

A Few Warnings and Notices
This release marks the switch to the new name Kodi. When you install this release candidate, your library and add-ons will be moved to Kodi, making reverting back to 13.2 fairly difficult. As such, it is recommended that you back up your library as well as your settings before installing Kodi.

Also, as Kodi is an unsigned application on OSX, you may need to go through a slightly different process to start it the first time. After you have copied Kodi to the Applications folder, you will need to “right click” or “two finger click” Kodi from within the Applications folder and select “Open” and then accept the warning. You should only need to do this the first time you run Kodi.


Kodi 14.0 Helix – Beta 1 Springs Forward
03
Nov

It’s certainly been a few rough-and-tumble months, but we’re pleased to announce the release of Beta 1 for Kodi 14.0 Helix.

This release brings many updates and changes, not the least of which being the name of the software. For those of you curious, we’ve now taken the top 10 or so vote getters in the logo vote and submitted them to doghousemedia to see how they might pull the best qualities out of all of them and combine those qualities into the best possible logo for the organization. As we continue down this path, we’ll do our best to keep you updated.

With that said, let’s take a look at some of the features that come with Beta 1.

The Next Generation of Video Codecs
ffmpeg-logoTo begin, Kodi has been updated to use FFmpeg 2.2.4. For users, this means Kodi will now be capable of playing back h.265 (also known as HEVC) and VP9 video codecs. This could result in dramatically smaller video files sizes with exactly the same level of quality. A 40 GB file could be compressed to 20 GB. A 1 GB file could be compressed to 500 MB without any loss in perceivable quality. Users with particularly large libraries or interest in 4K video may be especially likely to appreciate this update. Software support for the VP9 video codec is also included.

The caveat to this update is that it is entirely software based. This means most low power systems, such as those operating Android or iOS, may struggle compared to the heftier HTPCs or Intel NUCs and ZOTAC ZBOXes that are running desktop and laptop processors.

Library Improvements
The Kodi Library is getting improvements both coming in and going out. On the input side, library scanning is receiving a massive speed boost, which should make the initial scan on Android and iOS devices quite a bit more spritely.

On the output side, work continues, slowly but surely, on UPnP. Kodi is now significantly more compatible with servers like PlayOn and MediaBrowser, as client-related bugs have been dealt with. Further, communication between Kodi UPnP clients and Kodi UPnP servers continues to improve with proper or additional support for categories like date added, ratings, votes, and artwork, along with sorting for those new categories. UPnP search functions are also slowly working their way into Kodi.

More User Control Over Kodi
Two new features have been introduced with Kodi that should give users even more control over how the software works. First, users can now prevent addons from updating without a forced update, prevent addon update notifications, or simply continue to work with addons autoupdating as they do today. To change addon update settings, visit the Add-ons folder in System Settings, if you are using Confluence, click left with your keyboard or remote to open the side panel, where a number of options exist, including the option to hide any addons that aren’t expected to work in your region.

Second, in the past the virtual keyboard on the screen that users of tablets and remote controls are forced to deal with has always been set to the western standard QWERTY style. It is now possible to change the layout to a variety of other language options. To do so, visit the International section of the Appearance folder in System Settings and select Keyboard layouts. (Protip: If you are an English speaker living in the US, Australia, or New Zealand, you can also select a version of English that better suits your spelling style from the Language portion of the International section.)

Android, iOS, and embedded
retouchedOn the Android side, hardware playback improvements continue, including more and better support for various chipsets, improved fast forward and rewind capability, as well as 4K support for the AMLogic s802 chipset. On the iOS side, Airplay, which was fairly substantially broken by the update to iOS 7, appears to be almost entirely fixed on every platform save Android, which lacks certain software support, making Airplay playback only partially fixed on that platform. Additionally, support for the Freescale i.MX6 SystemOnChip has been added.

Furthermore, for you tablet users, we’ve now replaced the aging Touched skin with the improved Re-Touched skin, which includes a number of tweaks to bring it more inline with the features Kodi has to offer.

Windows, OSX, and Linux
All three platforms continue to see improvements in audio playback and a reduction of many audio-related bugs that have been plaguing the platforms for a long time. Windows also sees improvement in DXVA video playback.

PVR
American PVR users will be happy to learn that Kodi 14 introduces support for ATSC sub-channels. All users of PVR may be happy to learn that all PVR windows have been rebuilt to be better and more efficient.

Kodi 14.0 “Helix” Beta 1

As we already mention in last alpha4 release post, the first beta release is nearing pretty fast. At this moment we are only waiting for one more final change to happen and then we are good to go. We are only talking a week or two at most. About three weeks have past since but, yet we haven’t sat still. The list of changes and improvements continues to grow.
Although we also said feature freeze was in affect, we still found some things that were worth including in the upcoming release. These changes had little impact on stability or have been tested quite thoroughly

Localised keyboard support
Although the changes are small the effects for user can be quite big as they can now use a localized keyboard. Thanks to several non team members the list of available keyboard keeps growing. Due to the growing list we now also list them alphabetical using the English language names.

DXVA-HQ scaling for videos (Windows)
Since this feature might cause some issues for certain video cards, it was decided that users who actually want to use this feature, you will have to enable this through the advancedsettings.xml file. Of course this is for the more advanced users to worry about. Though it’s worth mentioning this changes as it could affect some of you.

Faster channel switching for PVR
For those that use the PVR capabilities have experienced that channel switching not always is as fast as you want it to be. This should now be some what improved and will switch channels a bit faster. Although there is likely still some gain to be made for the future.

Raspberry Pi audio resampling
The Pi’s GPU supports high quality re-sampling, format conversion and up/down mixing.
This PR creates a factory for different re-sample implementations, moves the current one into ResampleFFMPEG, and adds a ResamplePi GPU accelerated implementation.

Add MMAL decoder and MMAL renderer for Raspberry Pi
DVDs with menus do not work well with omxplayer (the main R-Pi internal player). For this the R-Pi uses the normal internal player from Kodi which offers better support for software decode for SD codecs like divx3, msmpeg, sorenson spark etc. Also omxplayer doesn’t support alsa, so can’t be used with USB and I2S sound cards. Internal dvdplayer may behave better with dodgy timestamps and packet loss, e.g. with live TV. So for this support was added to dvdplayer using the MMAL api. This offers hardware acceleration, saves the processing cost of YUV->RGB conversion, saves the memory cost of the RGB textures for video frames and allows high quality (cubic) scaling.

iOS 8 runtime fixes

Due to the release of iOS 8 some new problems showed up up the new Apple OS. Some of these issue are listed below and have been fixed

Orientation of our layer is borked when compiled against ios8 sdk and running on ios8 runtime (apple finally fixed the 90° based coordinates)
Because of 1 orientation on external screen is messed up too when compiling against ios8 sdk and running on ios8 runtime
On ios 8 runtime (independent of used SDK) the textfield above the native keyboard is hidden
On ios 8 runtime (independent of used SDK) VTB HW decoder crashes on seek
Several fixes concerning Airplay. It might still be possible that not all function like you want it to. Please know that our main developer for this part tries his best. Hopefully you understand that we are limited in both manpower and capabilities due to Apple constraints.
Update Windows power management functions
Our code still contained some functions that dated back to the Windows XP release. Now that we have dropped support for that OS a while ago it was also time to update the function. It is most likely most of you won’t notice it on normal usage. Due to these changes the support for the newer Windows version has improved a bit. One extra function has been added. When you have pending Windows updates that requires a reboot, it now gives you the possibility to install them if you reboot from within Kodi. Do note it will not force install any updates that you haven’t enabled.

Improvement in file handling system
This is really under the hood code changes that has greatly improved the code handling for several of the file systems we handle. Mainly stability and possible error handling.

Dolby Atmos surround sound
For the users who own the Transformers – Age of Extension Bluray (to name one), would have noticed that TrueHD playback didn’t work. This is caused because the Bluray includes the new Dolby Atmos sound for the TrueHD track. Our devs backported a fix from FFMPEG to at least retrieve the normal audio channels for playback. The actual Dolby Atmos functionality is of yet not supported.

Extending JSON-RPC even more
JSON-RPC is a remote procedure call protocol encoded in JSON. It allows any program to communicate to Kodi by sending certain commands and possibly retrieve data back. This is the main method that remotes like our official iOS remote uses to connect to Kodi. With these additions, these remotes become even more capable of controlling your favourite in house media center.

Several other fixes done:

* Fixed T9/SMS text input
* Updated several PVR add-ons to include fixes done
* SSA Subtitle fixes
* Added settings for preferred Bluray playback method. “play main movie”, “show disc menu” or “show simplified menu”
* Fix non loading of external subtitles for ISO files and Bluray directories
* Fix for importing some add-on modules that depended on other modules
* A lot more small fixes and tweaks.
Past changes since Gotham 13.x

For a brief list of other features and improvements you can read the following: alpha2, alpha3, alpha4

Add-ons
As for this Helix release, so far there have only been small things changed in regards to add-ons. So we are happy to say that almost all add-ons that worked in Gotham, will also work in Helix. There are of course some exceptions, however this should be only be a minimal amount.

Skins
Helix compatible skins in our repository at the moment are: Aeon Nox 5, Transparency!, Conq, Nebula and Black Glass Nova.
As of this release all other skins that have not been updated, will become incompatible. We hope that our dedicated skin developers will find the time to update these when we near final release. A big thank you them all for their continues effort.


Kodi 14.0 “Helix” Beta 1

As we already mention in last alpha4 release post, the first beta release is nearing pretty fast. At this moment we are only waiting for one more final change to happen and then we are good to go. We are only talking a week or two at most. About three weeks have past since but, yet we haven’t sat still. The list of changes and improvements continues to grow.
Although we also said feature freeze was in affect, we still found some things that were worth including in the upcoming release. These changes had little impact on stability or have been tested quite thoroughly

Localised keyboard support
Although the changes are small the effects for user can be quite big as they can now use a localized keyboard. Thanks to several non team members the list of available keyboard keeps growing. Due to the growing list we now also list them alphabetical using the English language names.

DXVA-HQ scaling for videos (Windows)
Since this feature might cause some issues for certain video cards, it was decided that users who actually want to use this feature, you will have to enable this through the advancedsettings.xml file. Of course this is for the more advanced users to worry about. Though it’s worth mentioning this changes as it could affect some of you.

Faster channel switching for PVR
For those that use the PVR capabilities have experienced that channel switching not always is as fast as you want it to be. This should now be some what improved and will switch channels a bit faster. Although there is likely still some gain to be made for the future.

Raspberry Pi audio resampling
The Pi’s GPU supports high quality re-sampling, format conversion and up/down mixing.
This PR creates a factory for different re-sample implementations, moves the current one into ResampleFFMPEG, and adds a ResamplePi GPU accelerated implementation.

Add MMAL decoder and MMAL renderer for Raspberry Pi
DVDs with menus do not work well with omxplayer (the main R-Pi internal player). For this the R-Pi uses the normal internal player from Kodi which offers better support for software decode for SD codecs like divx3, msmpeg, sorenson spark etc. Also omxplayer doesn’t support alsa, so can’t be used with USB and I2S sound cards. Internal dvdplayer may behave better with dodgy timestamps and packet loss, e.g. with live TV. So for this support was added to dvdplayer using the MMAL api. This offers hardware acceleration, saves the processing cost of YUV->RGB conversion, saves the memory cost of the RGB textures for video frames and allows high quality (cubic) scaling.

iOS 8 runtime fixes

Due to the release of iOS 8 some new problems showed up up the new Apple OS. Some of these issue are listed below and have been fixed

Orientation of our layer is borked when compiled against ios8 sdk and running on ios8 runtime (apple finally fixed the 90° based coordinates)
Because of 1 orientation on external screen is messed up too when compiling against ios8 sdk and running on ios8 runtime
On ios 8 runtime (independent of used SDK) the textfield above the native keyboard is hidden
On ios 8 runtime (independent of used SDK) VTB HW decoder crashes on seek
Several fixes concerning Airplay. It might still be possible that not all function like you want it to. Please know that our main developer for this part tries his best. Hopefully you understand that we are limited in both manpower and capabilities due to Apple constraints.
Update Windows power management functions
Our code still contained some functions that dated back to the Windows XP release. Now that we have dropped support for that OS a while ago it was also time to update the function. It is most likely most of you won’t notice it on normal usage. Due to these changes the support for the newer Windows version has improved a bit. One extra function has been added. When you have pending Windows updates that requires a reboot, it now gives you the possibility to install them if you reboot from within Kodi. Do note it will not force install any updates that you haven’t enabled.

Improvement in file handling system
This is really under the hood code changes that has greatly improved the code handling for several of the file systems we handle. Mainly stability and possible error handling.

Dolby Atmos surround sound
For the users who own the Transformers – Age of Extension Bluray (to name one), would have noticed that TrueHD playback didn’t work. This is caused because the Bluray includes the new Dolby Atmos sound for the TrueHD track. Our devs backported a fix from FFMPEG to at least retrieve the normal audio channels for playback. The actual Dolby Atmos functionality is of yet not supported.

Extending JSON-RPC even more
JSON-RPC is a remote procedure call protocol encoded in JSON. It allows any program to communicate to Kodi by sending certain commands and possibly retrieve data back. This is the main method that remotes like our official iOS remote uses to connect to Kodi. With these additions, these remotes become even more capable of controlling your favourite in house media center.

Several other fixes done:

* Fixed T9/SMS text input
* Updated several PVR add-ons to include fixes done
* SSA Subtitle fixes
* Added settings for preferred Bluray playback method. “play main movie”, “show disc menu” or “show simplified menu”
* Fix non loading of external subtitles for ISO files and Bluray directories
* Fix for importing some add-on modules that depended on other modules
* A lot more small fixes and tweaks.
Past changes since Gotham 13.x

For a brief list of other features and improvements you can read the following: alpha2, alpha3, alpha4

Add-ons
As for this Helix release, so far there have only been small things changed in regards to add-ons. So we are happy to say that almost all add-ons that worked in Gotham, will also work in Helix. There are of course some exceptions, however this should be only be a minimal amount.

Skins
Helix compatible skins in our repository at the moment are: Aeon Nox 5, Transparency!, Conq, Nebula and Black Glass Nova.
As of this release all other skins that have not been updated, will become incompatible. We hope that our dedicated skin developers will find the time to update these when we near final release. A big thank you them all for their continues effort.


Kodi 14.0 “Helix” alpha 4
03 Oct

Kodi 14, which we gave the codename “Helix“, is slowly heading towards beta status. In this possibly last alpha release, we continue to focus on stability and user friendliness. Around 117 pull-request (code changes) have been added past month in a variety of areas. There aren’t many additions that could be picked out as a real “features’. However we will highlight some of the main visual changes so far.

Replace Touch skin with re-Touched
This change only really affects iOS and Android enabled devices. re-Touched isn’t really a brand new skin as it has been available in Gotham repo as well. re-Touched is actually a slightly redesigned Touch skin with a different home screen layout and various tweaks in some areas. However we felt like we had to replace it with a more fresh and easier skin. PVR is still not included, as such you will need a different skin should you wish to use it.

Moving userdata for Windows users
As a result of the name change, we are also forced to make some code changes. This has resulted in the fact that you personal userdata folder will be moved to a new location. This will either be done at install time or initial run. This just means the location of the files that hold your library and settings will be moved. No data will be lost during this transition. After you have installed Kodi and run it, you shouldn’t even notice a thing and you can continue using it as always. For now only the Windows platforms has this incorporated with the following steps

If User installs into a dir were kodi is already installed ask if he wants to overwrite it.
a. if user says “yes” – un-install former installation and install new
b. if user says “no” – he stays at the folder selection page and can re-decide

If user installs into a different directory
a. He said no on 1.b – kodi will just be installed in the different directory
b. He selected the new directory initally without hitting the question in 1. – check if there is a kodi installation in another directory – if so – ask user if he wants us to un-install it. If no – kodi will be installed side by side

At the end of installation check for an old XBMC installation
a. if found – ask if the user wants us to un-install it
a1 if user said “yes” – un-install old XBMC installation and move the userdata – inform the user about the moved data
a2 if user said “no” – keep the old XBMC installation and DON’T move the userdata – inform the user about the fact that kodi will use the default profile data.

portable data is not touched at all

Other platforms still need further testing to make this transition as smooth as possible. We will of course keep you up to date when this happens.

Other changes in this release

* support for sub-channels in PVR
* update sqlite which brings some improved library speed
* add support for DSD audio
* add mouse support in Bluray menus
* add support for EGL/GLESv2 when using X11
* 4K playback on Android using AMLcodec
* support for the Freescale i.MX6 SystemOnChip
* improvements for DXVA video playback on Windows platform
Add-ons
As for this Helix release, so far there have only been small things changed in regards to add-ons. So we are happy to say that almost all add-ons that worked in Gotham, will also work in Helix. There are of course some exceptions, however this should be only be a minimal amount.

Skins
Creating a skins for Kodi takes many months of designing, coding, testing, tweaking and a lot of patience to get it just right. However with every major Kodi (past XBMC) release there is the problem of skins becoming incompatible due to various code changes. So for every release people who put a lot of effort creating these skins, need to adapt it for the next Kodi version. This could mean that your favourite skin doesn’t work in the next Kodi version. We are very glad to say, that thanks to a group of skin developers, there are already 2 Helix compatible skins available in our repository. From memory this has never happened before, that within the alpha stage there are already skins available for you to enjoy using. On our forum there are several more skins being worked on, to get these into shape for people to use. So hopefully by the time of final release, there will be several more available. So let’s all thank the developers for their hard work they do for the community.

Helix compatible skins in our repository at the moment are: Aeon Nox 5, Transparency!, Conq, Nebula, Black Glass Nova.
As of this release all other skins that have not been updated, will become incompatible.


Kodi 14.0 “Helix” alpha 3
31 Aug

Kodi 14, which we gave the codename “Helix“, is shaping up to be what is often called a “stability” release. In software development, many projects operate on a sort of tick-tock release schedule. The “tick” often introduces new features, dramatically alters the UI, and can likely dramatically alter the underlying framework of the software. The “tock” on the other hand, goes back and cleans up the code, fixing old incompatibilities, eliminating UI inconsistencies, and often preparing the groundwork for the next major tick. Where Gotham was quite definitely a “tick,” Helix is shaping up to be a “tock.”

This months alpha release doesn’t contain anything that could be picked out as a real “feature’. Most of the changes are under the hood and should further improve stability and user friendliness. However we will highlight some of the main visual changes so far.

International keyboard layout
keyboard_layout_setting The virtual keyboard which included in Kodi has been the same for many years, with a set layout. From this alpha release, it’s now possible to change the layout to some well of the well known ones, like QWERTY and AZERTY. Additionally there’s also a Hebrew and Bulgarian layout included. Important: As an affect of this change you will notice that most of the third-party skins will now have a blank keyboard layout as they have not been updated yet.

Auto update add-ons
keyboard_layout_settingWe have added several option considering the updating of add-ons. You can set it to always auto-update, so you never have to worry about not being up-to-date. Second option is to let you notify you when there are updates available. You can then manually install them. Third is simply turning it all off. This means no add-ons will be auto update and you won’t be notified. You will have to manually trigger the check for new updates.

The changelog for Kodi 14 alpha 3 alone contains 138 changes so far. Alpha 2 had 333 changes Needless to say, they can’t all be summarized here or are to technical or boring the regular users. Here are some that are surely worth mentioning:

* Ability to increase font size in Confluence skin
* Add 5.1 PCM playback for Android.
* Improved MusicBrainz matching from tags
* Ability to choose between auto-update, notify or off for updating add-ons. This is a global setting for all add-ons.
* Extend JSON-RPC which is used for by a variety of services and remotes
* VP9 video codec now uses software multi-threading. This codec has no hardware support yet.
* Simplifying and improving core code.


XBMC 13.2 Gotham – Final release
18 Aug

Here it is. One of the last versions ever that will be using the XBMC name, as we are renaming XBMC to Kodi. All our future releases will be using the Kodi name. You can read about that here. However lets focus on this release. After three beta releases and a release candidate, we are happy to announce the final 13.2 release. This follows a couple of months after the 13.1 release, and is considered a small bug fix release. Unfortunately we cannot fix all things reported. Below you will find a list of most important fixes included in this release.

Do note that this release only contains fixes and no new features. So it should be safe to install on top of any of the current 13.x releases. Please read the important notice at the bottom as well. Should you find any problems, you can find how to report these at the bottom of this announcement.

Fixes

Fixes done in 13.2

* Fix audio problems with pass-through on OSX
* Crash in Android if an app is favourite, then uninstalled from system.
* Fix crash in Android when entering programs menu in some skins
* Bitstream conversion fix for some BD mkv iso rips
* Fix labelcontrols with autowidth set were always marked as dirty (re-render)
* Update included PVR add-on
* Set “remote as keyboard” default to true for Android
* Fix FTP TLS not working
* Fix some disappearing characters on Mac OSX
* Fix onplaybackstarted event for external players
* Don’t show OSD menu DVD menu with mouse/touch
* GetText and delete sound option for add-on developers
* Fix wrong sample-rate selection on OSX
* Fix optical usb devices with > 2 channels on OSX
* Fix firewall popups in OSX on start-up
* Make the fake full-screen option only visible when running OSX snowleopard
* Fix overlapping subtitles
* Fix accented letters. Example: “VARIéS” rather than “VARIÉS”
* Prompt for master pin in case the add-on manager is locked
* Update GUI translations
* Update included add-ons
* Fixed several bugs and memory leaks


XBMC 13.2 Gotham – Release Candidate 1
08 Aug

xbmc-gotham-13.2-rc-splash
After three beta releases, we are happy to announce our 13.2 Release Candidate. This follows a couple of months after the 13.1 release, and is considered a small bug fix release. Unfortunately we cannot fix all things reported. Below you will find a list of most important fixes included in this release.

Do note that this release only contains fixes and no new features. So it should be safe to install on top of any of the current 13.X releases. In due time we will of course release a 13.2 stable version after we are confident there are no regressions compared to 13.1 stable. Please read the important notice at the bottom as well. Should you find any problems, you can find how to report these at the bottom of this announcement.

Fixes

Fixes done in 13.2

* Fix audio problems with pass-through on OSX
* Crash in Android if an app is favourite, then uninstalled from system.
* Fix crash in Android when entering programs menu in some skins
* Bitstream conversion fix for some BD mkv iso rips
* Fix labelcontrols with autowidth set were always marked as dirty (re-render)
* Update included PVR add-on
* Set “remote as keyboard” default to true for Android
* Fix FTP TLS not working
* Fix some disappearing characters on Mac OSX
* Fix onplaybackstarted event for external players
* Don’t show OSD menu DVD menu with mouse/touch
* GetText and delete sound option for add-on developers
* Fix wrong sample-rate selection on OSX
* Fix optical usb devices with > 2 channels on OSX
* Fix firewall popups in OSX on start-up
* Make the fake full-screen option only visible when running OSX snowleopard
* Fix overlapping subtitles
* Fix accented letters. Example: “VARIéS” rather than “VARIÉS”
* Prompt for master pin in case the add-on manager is locked
* Update GUI translations
* Update included add-ons
* Fixed several bugs and memory leaks


XBMC 13.2 Gotham – beta 3
04 Aug

13.2-Gotham-beta
About two months ago we released our 13.1 version which included several bug fixes compared to the 13.0 release. Because of the fact that not all fixes could be included in that point release, we now are happy to announce a 13.2 beta3 version. We actually skipped the 13.2 beta2 announcement on our websites only mentioned it on our forums and social media. That beta release followed about a two week after the 13.2 beta1. Current beta release includes an additional list of small fixes, that should resolve some of the common problems reported by users. Unfortunately we cannot fix all things reported. Hopefully you will understand. Below you will find a list of most important fixes included in this release.

Do note that this release contain only fixes and no new features. So it should be safe to install on top of current 13.0 and 13.1 release. In due time we will of course release a 13.2 stable version after we are confident there are no regressions compared to 13.1 stable. Please read the important notice at the bottom as well. Should you find any problems, you can find how to report these at the bottom of this announcement.

Fixes

Fixes done in 13.2 beta 3

* Fix audio problems with pass-through on OSX
* Crash in Android if an app is favourite, then uninstalled from system.
* Fix crash in Android when entering programs menu in some skins
* Bitstream conversion fix for some BD mkv iso rips
Fixes done in 13.2 beta 2

* Fix labelcontrols with autowidth set were always marked as dirty (re-render)
* Update included PVR add-on
* Set “remote as keyboard” default to true for Android
* Fix FTP TLS not working
* Fix some disappearing characters on Mac OSX
Fixes done in previous 13.2 beta 1 which are also included

* Fix onplaybackstarted event for external players
* Don’t show OSD menu DVD menu with mouse/touch
* GetText and delete sound option for add-on developers
* Fix wrong sample-rate selection on OSX
* Fix optical usb devices with > 2 channels on OSX
* Fix firewall popups in OSX on start-up
* Make the fake full-screen option only visible when running OSX snowleopard
* Fix overlapping subtitles
* Fix accented letters. Example: “VARIéS” rather than “VARIÉS”
* Prompt for master pin in case the add-on manager is locked
* Update GUI translations
* Update included add-ons
* Fixed several bugs and memory leaks


XBMC 13.2 Gotham – beta 1
14 Jul

About a month ago we released our 13.1 version which included several bug fixes compared to the 13.0 release. Because of the fact that not all fixes could be included in that point release, we now are happy to announce a 13.2 beta1 version. This includes an additional list of fixes, that should resolve some of the common problems reported by users. Unfortunately we cannot fix all things reported. Hopefully you will understand. Below you will find a list of most important fixes included in this release.

Do note that this release contain only fixes and no new features. So it should be safe to install on top of current 13.0 and 13.1 release. In due time we will of course release a 13.2 stable version after we are confident there are no regressions compared to 13.1 stable. Please read the important notice at the bottom as well. Should you find any problems, you can find how to report these at the bottom of this announcement.

Fixes

* Fix onplaybackstarted event for external players
* Don’t show OSD menu DVD menu with mouse/touch
* GetText and delete sound option for add-on developers
* Fix wrong sample-rate selection on OSX
* Fix optical usb devices with > 2 channels on OSX
* Fix firewall popups in OSX on start-up
* Make the fake full-screen option only visible when running OSX snowleopard
* Fix overlapping subtitles
* Fix accented letters. Example: “VARIéS” rather than “VARIÉS”
* Prompt for master pin in case the add-on manager is locked
* Update GUI translations
* Update included add-ons
* Fixed several bugs and memory leaks


XBMC 13.1 Gotham returns
05 Jun

Now that more people are starting to use XBMC 13.0 codename “Gotham,” several issues have popped up which testing hadn’t previously revealed. After releasing two betas and a release candidate, it’s time for a final 13.1 release. The incorporated fixes are the ones already mentioned in the release candidate announcement, nonetheless we will list them again below. Do note that this release contains only fixes, and no new features. This 13.1 release can be safely installed on top of any previous XBMC releases. Please read the important notice at the bottom as well. Should you find any problems, you can find how to report these at the bottom of this announcement. Very likely we will release another bug-fix release after this version, with additional fixes and small improvements. These are however to intrusive to already include in this 13.1 release, as they need careful testing.

This 13.1 release contains the fixes compared to previous 13.0

* Fix resume point of certain PVR items begin stale on playback.
* Fix weirdness when certain TVs query XBMC’s UPnP server and it
starts running a bunch of add-ons which cause popups on the XBMC
machine.
* Fix crash at exit while airplay is playing
* Better recovery of VDPAU on errors.
* Fixes for cropping of interlaced content using VDPAU.
* Fix for FLAC tracks with large embedded images not playing.
* Fix for crash if librtmp wasn’t available.
* Fix for ffmpeg building on linux using later versions of librtmp.
* Fix for broken m4a, mp4 playback with paplayer.
* Fix for the hint text not being shown in editcontrols once unfocused.
* Fix minor memory leak in PlayMedia builtin function.
* Fix albumartist use in song smartplaylists.
* Use unique client broadcast UID in the PVR api.


XBMC 13.1 Gotham – RC1
25 May

Now that more people are starting to use XBMC 13.0 codename “Gotham,” several issues have popped up which thorough testing hadn’t previously revealed. We have already released two 13.1 beta versions, which had several fixes and improvements compared to the 13.0 stable release. To that end, we are announcing this 13.1 RC1 release which include these fixes. Do note that this release contain only fixes, and no new features. Although we call this a release candidate release, it should be safe to install on top of your current 13.0 install, as changes are minimal and confirmed working. Should you find any problems, you can find how to report these at the bottom of this blog post.

This release candidate contains the fixes compared to previous 13.0

* Fix resume point of certain PVR items begin stale on playback.
* Fix weirdness when certain TVs query XBMC’s UPnP server and it
starts running a bunch of add-ons which cause popups on the XBMC
machine.
* Fix crash at exit while airplay is playing
* Better recovery of VDPAU on errors.
* Fixes for cropping of interlaced content using VDPAU.
* Fix for FLAC tracks with large embedded images not playing.
* Fix for crash if librtmp wasn’t available.
* Fix for ffmpeg building on linux using later versions of librtmp.
* Fix for broken m4a, mp4 playback with paplayer.
* Fix for the hint text not being shown in editcontrols once unfocused.
* Fix minor memory leak in PlayMedia builtin function.
* Fix albumartist use in song smartplaylists.
* Use unique client broadcast UID in the PVR api.


XBMC 13.1 Gotham – beta 2
18 May

Now that more people are starting to use XBMC 13.0 codename “Gotham,” several issues have popped up which thorough testing hadn’t previously revealed. We have already released a 13.1 beta1 which has several fixes and improvements compared to the 13.0 stable release. Since then, our developers have added even more improvements which should resolve a few remaining issues.
To that end, we are announcing this 13.1 beta 2 release. Do note that this release contain only fixes and no new features. Although we call this a beta release it should be safe to install on top of current 13.0 release as changes are minimal and confirmed working. In due time we will of course release a 13.1 stable version after we are confident, there are no regressions, aka problems caused by these fixes, compared to 13.0 stable. Should you find any problems, you can find how to report these at the bottom of this blog post.

Fixes done in 13.1 beta 2

* Fix resume point of certain PVR items begin stale on playback.
* Fix weirdness when certain TVs query XBMC’s UPnP server and it
starts running a bunch of add-ons which cause popups on the XBMC
machine.
* Fix crash at exit while airplay is playing.
Fixes done in previous 13.1 beta 1 which are also included

* Better recovery of VDPAU on errors.
* Fixes for cropping of interlaced content using VDPAU.
* Fix for FLAC tracks with large embedded images not playing.
* Fix for crash if librtmp wasn’t available.
* Fix for ffmpeg building on linux using later versions of librtmp.
* Fix for broken m4a, mp4 playback with paplayer.
* Fix for the hint text not being shown in editcontrols once unfocused.
* Fix minor memory leak in PlayMedia builtin function.
* Fix albumartist use in song smartplaylists.
* Use unique client broadcast UID in the PVR api.


XBMC 13.1 beta1 Gotham
12 May

Only a week ago we released the stable version of 13.0 codename “Gotham”. So far, from the responses we have received, people are pretty excited about it and are happily using it. Now that more people are starting to use the stable release, several issues popped up, that we now hope to address with this 13.1 beta1 release. Do note that this release contain only fixes and no new features. So it should be safe to install on top of current 13.0 release.

Fixes
* Better recovery of VDPAU on errors.
* Fixes for cropping of interlaced content using VDPAU.
* Fix for FLAC tracks with large embedded images not playing.
* Fix for crash if librtmp wasn’t available.
* Fix for ffmpeg building on linux using later versions of librtmp.
* Fix for broken m4a, mp4 playback with paplayer.
* Fix for the hint text not being shown in editcontrols once unfocused.
* Fix minor memory leak in PlayMedia builtin function.
* Fix albumartist use in song smartplaylists.
* Use unique client broadcast UID in the PVR api.


XBMC 13.0 Gotham rises
04 May

The dark night of waiting is finally over. Because here it is. The stable release of XBMC 13.0 Gotham edition. It has been months of hard work, improvements and testing since the 12.x releases. There have been around 530 commits (chunks of code change) done by 51 developers during this time. Also a large group of translators who aided in making the user interface available in your local language. So we would like to thank every one, inside and outside of Team XBMC for their hard work and effort to make this possible. Not to forget all users who have been using the monthly and nightly builds, helping us test this upcoming release, and all third-party software libraries we use.

The past year we have kept you informed with our monthly blog posts of all the exciting new features added to this final release. Now, let’s review a few of those features we’re particularly excited about.

The features
Android Hardware Decoding DL_Icons_Android-new

Since 2012 July 12, the single most requested feature has been hardware decoding in Android, and with XBMC 13 we are finally able to make that feature a reality. XBMC should run on Android 4.0 and higher and is offered now in two separate builds, namely ARM and x86, which are the hardware architectures of the device. You would need to consult your device specifications before you download XBMC for Android, though the vast majority of Android devices run on ARM hardware.

Raspberry Pi and Android speed improvements DL_Icons_RaspberryPi-new

Since the release of Frodo a lot of effort has been put into getting XBMC to run smoother on lower powered platform like the famous Raspberry Pi and of course Android. All this effort has paid off and the experience of using these devices has become much more polished and satisfying than ever before. In particular, opening your libraries, browsing through them, loading images and starting videos have all seen dramatic speed increases.

Stereoscopic 3D Rendering

Some of the newly available 3D Options

For you lovers of 3D out there, we are also pleased to say that we now support 3D movies encoded in the following formats: SBS, TAB, anaglyph, and interlaced (on supported platforms for passive TVs). Unfortunately, XBMC cannot yet support 3D blurays and cannot provide hardware acceleration for FullSBS/TAB movies (therefore limiting those videos to relatively high powered CPUs).

Improved Touchscreen Support

XBMC on touchscreens now supports gesture controls during video playback, as well as supporting swiping controls in navigation.

Improved UPnP capabilities

gotham-upnp_play_usingInstances of XBMC throughout the house can now “speak” with each other and with other UPnP devices. Support now includes more advanced library browsing as well as “Play using…” functions, allowing XBMC to tell another device on the network to play a certain media file.

So you can browse the UPnP library on your tablet and send a video from that library straight to you main XBMC HTPC, similar to Apple’s Airplay and Google’s casting features.

Additionally when watching videos from the XBMC UPnP server, watch status will be updated so you don’t have to remember what shows you’ve already watched.

Dramatic Audio Engine Improvements

The Audio Engine introduced with XBMC 12.0 “Frodo” has been reworked to be simpler, faster, with better quality and less likelihood of breaking in XBMC 13 across all platforms. You may also notice that some users will need to reconfigure their audio settings. This is caused by the audio improvements and restructuring of the settings systems. However this should be more intuitive and user friendly than it was in XBMC 12 thanks to improvements in Settings.

On Linux there is additional good news for Desktop users who don’t use XBMC as a standalone HTPC through OpenELEC or XBMCbuntu. XBMC will now cooperate nicely with the pulseaudio server and will provide real pulseaudio support. This is a behavior change, make sure to read the PulseAudio XBMC wiki page to learn more.

Settings Improvements

From the user perspective, three major changes will be introduced that should dramatically improve usability in XBMC settings.

First, settings have been broken down into levels starting at beginner and going all the way up the scale to expert level. The typical XBMC user should never need to go very far past the Standard settings. If installing XBMC for friends or family, it is highly encouraged that you move the settings down to Beginner level. And if a setting has disappeared that you typically expect to see, definitely browse through the settings levels, as it likely has been hidden on a more advanced level.

Second, every setting now includes a description, which may be found at the bottom of the settings page on the default Confluence skin. If a setting title is odd or is otherwise confusing, this description is intended to clear up the purpose of the setting and the result of changing it.

Third, every setting page now includes a Reset to Default option so that if you find yourself completely unable to return to a usable state in XBMC, you can always start fresh without having to perform a complete reinstall. Importantly, resetting one group of settings to default does not affect any others. So if you have video settings just right, but audio is screwed up, you can reset audio without affecting video.

Making Subtitle Search Better

Gotham 13.0 Improved subtitle search

This change should give subtitle add-on developers a great deal more latitude for implementing changes and fixes without needing to wait for other add-on devs to submit similar fixes, all to the benefit of the user experience. From the user perspective, the only significant change will be in the way a subtitle search service is downloaded. The user will need to select and download their preferred subtitle add-on before starting a movie and searching for subtitles. At present there are 19 to choose from.

An Extended Python and JSON-RPC API for developers

While this feature may not be as immediately noticeable upon install, it could ultimately be one of the most important changes of XBMC 13. With the extension of the API, users should soon be able to control virtually every aspect of XBMC without once touching the XBMC UI. Developers will now have unprecedented opportunity to make even more powerful remote control apps, web GUIs, and XBMC add-ons. For example, with the Official XBMC Remote for iOS users can now configure every single setting in XBMC without once opening the settings window in XBMC itself.

We look forward to the community taking advantage of this extended API and creating some extraordinary features in the future.

Yet More Features

- Update to FFMPEG v1.2 which we use for audio/video playback
- Stereo audio can now be up-mixed to 5.1 and sent through optical/SPDIF devices
- Various visual changes throughout the skin which should improve usability and logic.
- Improve the handling of subtitle downloading and selection
- Extend and improve the User-interface Engine which developers use to create a variety of skins to be used.
- Drop of support for Windows XP. Due to upgrades in the way we build XBMC, it is no longer possible to install or run XBMC on Windows XP. For current XP users we can suggest installing OpenELEC or XBMCbuntu as a free way to use XBMC 13 as a pure media centre.
- When initiating a library cleaning, XBMC will send a wake-on-lan request to any sleeping servers first, before cleaning the library, to ensure that content isn’t unnecessarily cleaned
- Numerous PVR fixes and updates with additional new features updated on a per-platform basis. For more info, check out our PVR wiki page
- Copy/paste support on Windows, OSX, and iOS to match copy/paste support elsewhere
- Movie sets are now user editable
- Episodic bookmarks – If episodes are not broken into individual parts (e.g. Friends episode 1 and 2 are in the same video file), a bookmark can be set that will cause launching episode 2 from the UI to go directly to the bookmark in the video file
For a brief change log visit our wiki page: Gotham Changelog http://wiki.xbmc.org/index.php?title=XBMC_v13_%28Gotham%29_changelog

Skins

Not all skins from Frodo are guaranteed to work on Gotham. The following is a list of skins that have been checked for 13.0 compatibility and are currently in the XBMC skin repo.

Ace, Aeon MQ 5, Aeon_Nox.5, Amber, Black Glass Nova, Cirrus Extended, Confluence, Hybrid, Metropolis, Quartz, Re-Touched,Transparency!

Official XBMC Remote for iOS

iOS Simulator Screen shot 28 Apr, 2014 20.04.53

We are also pleased to announce v1.5 of the Official XBMC Remote app for iOS. In addition to all past features, v1.5 now supports controlling LiveTV, along with access to the EPG, PVR recordings, and PVR timers. Users can now also change and update all XBMC settings from directly within the remote app by hitting the gears button on the Remote Control tab and selecting “…more.” For a complete changelog, visit the the Official Remote page in the Appstore.

The fixes
The list of fixes is too vast to even being listing here. Some improvements and fixes came in with the features mentioned above and some came in separately. For all this we want to thank our passionate group of Team XBMC developers and the hundreds of third-party developers who contributed to XBMC with patches and improvements. For the curious people who do want to know every change, you can find the full list on our github development repo, although it’s quite technical to read through. https://github.com/xbmc/xbmc/compare/Gotham...Frodo


XBMC 13.0 Gotham – Release Candidate 1
28 Apr

We hope you are as excited about this as we are. After a year of hard work, improvements and testing since the release of version 12.0, we are delighted to announce the first release candidate of the upcoming XBMC 13.0, codenamed “Gotham”. The past year we have kept you informed with our monthly blog posts of all the exciting new features added to this upcoming release. Now, let’s review a few of those features we’re particularly excited about.

The features
Android Hardware Decoding DL_Icons_Android-new

Since 2012 July 12, the single most requested feature has been hardware decoding in Android, and with XBMC 13 we are finally able to make that feature a reality. XBMC should run on Android 4.0 and higher and is offered now in two separate builds, namely ARM and x86, which are the hardware architectures of the device. You would need to consult your device specifications before you download XBMC for Android, though the vast majority of Android devices run on ARM hardware.

Raspberry Pi and Android speed improvements DL_Icons_RaspberryPi-new

Since the release of Frodo a lot of effort has been put into getting XBMC to run smoother on lower powered platform like the famous Raspberry Pi and of course Android. All this effort has paid off and the experience of using these devices has become much more polished and satisfying than ever before. In particular, opening your libraries, browsing through them, loading images and starting videos have all seen dramatic speed increases.

Stereoscopic 3D Rendering

Some of the newly available 3D Options

For you lovers of 3D out there, we are also pleased to say that we now support 3D movies encoded in the following formats: SBS, TAB, anaglyph, and interlaced (on supported platforms for passive TVs). Unfortunately, XBMC cannot yet support 3D blurays and cannot provide hardware acceleration for FullSBS/TAB movies (therefore limiting those videos to relatively high powered CPUs).

Improved Touchscreen Support

XBMC on touchscreens now supports gesture controls during video playback, as well as supporting swiping controls in navigation.

Improved UPnP capabilities

gotham-upnp_play_usingInstances of XBMC throughout the house can now “speak” with each other and with other UPnP devices. Support now includes more advanced library browsing as well as “Play using…” functions, allowing XBMC to tell another device on the network to play a certain media file.

So you can browse the UPnP library on your tablet and send a video from that library straight to you main XBMC HTPC, similar to Apple’s Airplay and Google’s casting features.

Additionally when watching videos from the XBMC UPnP server, watch status will be updated so you don’t have to remember what shows you’ve already watched.

Dramatic Audio Engine Improvements

The Audio Engine introduced with XBMC 12.0 “Frodo” has been reworked to be simpler, faster, with better quality and less likelihood of breaking in XBMC 13 across all platforms. You may also notice that some users will need to reconfigure their audio settings. This is caused by the audio improvements and restructuring of the settings systems. However this should be more intuitive and user friendly than it was in XBMC 12 thanks to improvements in Settings.

On Linux there is additional good news for Desktop users who don’t use XBMC as a standalone HTPC through OpenELEC or XBMCbuntu. XBMC will now cooperate nicely with the pulseaudio server and will provide real pulseaudio support. This is a behavior change, make sure to read the PulseAudio XBMC wiki page to learn more.

Settings Improvements

From the user perspective, three major changes will be introduced that should dramatically improve usability in XBMC settings.

First, settings have been broken down into levels starting at beginner and going all the way up the scale to expert level. The typical XBMC user should never need to go very far past the Standard settings. If installing XBMC for friends or family, it is highly encouraged that you move the settings down to Beginner level. And if a setting has disappeared that you typically expect to see, definitely browse through the settings levels, as it likely has been hidden on a more advanced level.

Second, every setting now includes a description, which may be found at the bottom of the settings page on the default Confluence skin. If a setting title is odd or is otherwise confusing, this description is intended to clear up the purpose of the setting and the result of changing it.

Third, every setting page now includes a Reset to Default option so that if you find yourself completely unable to return to a useable state in XBMC, you can always start fresh without having to perform a complete reinstall. Importantly, resetting one group of settings to default does not affect any others. So if you have video settings just right, but audio is screwed up, you can reset audio without affecting video.

Making Subtitle Search Better

Gotham 13.0 Improved subtitle search

This change should give subtitle addon developers a great deal more latitude for implementing changes and fixes without needing to wait for other addon devs to submit similar fixes, all to the benefit of the user experience. From the user perspective, the only significant change will be in the way a subtitle search service is downloaded. The user will need to select and download their preferred subtitle addon before starting a movie and searching for subtitles. At present there are 19 to choose from.

An Extended Python and JSON-RPC API for developers

While this feature may not be as immediately noticeable upon install, it could ultimately be one of the most important changes of XBMC 13. With the extension of the API, users should soon be able to control virtually every aspect of XBMC without once touching the XBMC UI. Developers will now have unprecedented opportunity to make even more powerful remote control apps, web GUIs, and XBMC add-ons. For example, with the Official XBMC Remote for iOS users can now configure every single setting in XBMC without once opening the settings window in XBMC itself.

We look forward to the community taking advantage of this extended API and creating some extraordinary features in the future.

Yet More Features

- Update to FFMPEG v1.2 which we use for audio/video playback
- Stereo audio can now be upmixed to 5.1 and sent through optical/SPDIF devices
- Various visual changes throughout the skin which should improve usability and logic.
- Improve the handling of subtitle downloading and selection
- Extend and improve the User-interface Engine which developers use to create a variety of skins to be used.
- Drop of support for Windows XP. Due to upgrades in the way we build XBMC, it is no longer possible to install XBMC onto Windows XP. For current XP users we can suggest installing OpenELEC or XBMCbuntu as a free way to use XBMC 13 as a pure media centre.
- When initiating a library cleaning, XBMC will send a wake-on-lan request to any sleeping servers first, before cleaning the library, to ensure that content isn’t unnecessarily cleaned
- Numerous PVR fixes and updates with additional new features updated on a per-platform basis. For more info, check out our PVR wiki page
- Copy/paste support on Windows, OSX, and iOS to match copy/paste support elsewhere
- Movie sets are now user editable
- Episodic bookmarks – If episodes are not broken into individual parts (e.g. Friends episode 1 and 2 are in the same video file), a bookmark can be set that will cause launching episode 2 from the UI to go directly to the bookmark in the video file

https://github.com/xbmc/xbmc/compare/Gotham_beta4...Gotham_rc1


XBMC 13.0 Gotham – Beta 4
19 Apr

With Beta 4 we are only looking at bug fixing rather than features. Further down we will list several of the more important fixes that have been added since last beta. Hopefully Beta 4 will be the last one, before we will enter Release Candidate stage. This means final release is nearing.

For a full run down of the major features of XBMC 13, as well as a review of the hazards of switching to XBMC 13, see our Beta 1 post. The list of all Gotham related news can be found here listing all past blog posts.

Fixes
* Fix unwanted volume restore on Airplay volume
* Fix occasional crashing on GUI language changing
* Don’t drain Wii battery by disabling motion sensing
* Fix various problems when using NFS as media source
* Restore the music background playback ability for iOS
* Improved support for Amazon Fire-TV
* Fix various playback issues on Android
* Fix double application of 16-235 correction on DXVA-HD.
* Other fixes https://github.com/xbmc/xbmc/compare/Gotham_beta3...Gotham_beta4


XBMC 13.0 Gotham – The Beta 2 We Deserve
17 Mar

It’s been a mere 13 days since beta 1 came out, and already we’re ready for beta 2. This is almost entirely a “fix” beta release, meaning no new features, only a more rock solid foundation. Still, many of those fixes are worth mentioning in an abbreviated change log. For a more full rundown of the features of XBMC 13, see our Beta 1 post.

Fixes
* Subtitles for videos over http should now support the same subtitle functions supported by local media (Note: Certain subtitle issues will only be fixed when non-default skins provide updates. Other fixes are in the works.)
* Rockchip devices on Android will no longer cause XBMC to crash occasionally during playback
* PVR Programming Guide cleanups
* AudioEngine improvements to handling AC3 and DTS, as well as smarter handling in Android and intelligent EAC3 recognition
* Crash on exit should be fixed on various platforms
* JSON-RPC file listing fixes
* DXVA fixes in Windows for older Intel GPUs
* Wording and grammar fixes throughout the UI


Additional Features Not Mentioned in Beta 1 Announcement
As some users have rightly noted, while almost every major feature has been highlighted in some form or other in the various monthly blog posts, not all of them were discussed in the Beta 1 blog. The following is a list of a few of those that probably deserve a second round of attention. (Additionally. there are a few XBMC 13 features that are not quite working now, due to changes such as the iOS 7 update. We will hold off discussing those until the bugs have all been worked out.) For now, however:

* When initiating a library cleaning, XBMC will send a wake-on-lan request to any sleeping servers first, before cleaning the library, to ensure that content isn’t unnecessarily cleaned
* Numerous PVR fixes and updates with additional new features updated on a per-platform basis. For more info, check out our PVR wiki page
* Copy/paste support on Windows, OSX, and iOS to match copy/paste support elsewhere
* Movie sets are now user editable
* Episodic bookmarks – If episodes are not broken into individual parts (e.g. Adventure episode 1 and 2 are in the same video file), a bookmark can be set that will cause launching episode 2 from the UI to go directly to the bookmark in the video file


The Shirt


For those of you on the fence about the XBMC t-shirt (also available in women’s sizes and as a hoodie, as well as multiple colors), you should know that as of this writing there are only 1 day and 12 hours left to buy. Time’s just about up!

Fun related fact: As of this writing, you, the users, have nearly generated as much as a diamond sponsorship for the Foundation purely through t-shirt sales. Serious thought is currently being given to the idea of making The Buyers of the Beta Shirt a Diamond Sponsor, listed on our sponsor page.

Such a decision has to be approved by the Foundation board of directors (and we still aren’t there yet in sales), but if sales keep going like they’ve been going (tell your friends!) and the board approves the decision, every person who bought a shirt could go to our sponsor page, point to the Buyers of the Beta Shirt listing, and say, “I too am a Diamond Sponsor of XBMC.”

http://wiki.xbmc.org/index.php?title=XBMC_v13_%28Gotham%29_changelog


XBMC 13.0 Gotham – Beta1 rises!
04
Mar

We hope you are as excited about this as we are. After a year of hard work, improvements and testing since the release of version 12.0, we are delighted to announce the Beta release of the upcoming XBMC 13.0, codenamed “Gotham”. The past year we have kept you informed with our monthly blog posts of all the exciting new features added to this upcoming release. Now, let’s review a few of those features we’re particularly excited about.

The features
Android Hardware Decoding DL_Icons_Android-new

Since 2012 July 12, the single most requested feature has been hardware decoding in Android, and with XBMC 13 we are finally able to make that feature a reality. XBMC should run on Android 4.0 and higher and is offered now in two separate build, namely ARM and x86 which are the hardware architectures of the device. You would need to consult your device specifications before you download XBMC for Android, though the vast majority of Android devices run on ARM hardware.

Raspberry Pi and Android speed improvements DL_Icons_RaspberryPi-new

Since the release of Frodo a lot of effort has been put into getting XBMC to run smoother on lower powered platform like the famous Raspberry Pi and of course Android. All this effort has paid off and the experience of using these devices has been much more polished and satisfying than ever before. For example opening your libraries, browsing through them, loading of images and the starting of videos have all seen dramatic speed increases.

Stereoscopic 3D Rendering

Some of the newly available 3D Options

For you lovers of 3D out there, we are also pleased to say that we now support 3D movies encoded in the following formats: SBS, TAB, anaglyph, and interlaced (on supported platforms for passive TVs). Unfortunately, XBMC cannot yet support 3D blurays and cannot provide hardware acceleration for FullSBS/TAB movies (therefore limiting those videos to relatively high powered CPUs).

Improved Touchscreen Support

XBMC on touchscreens now supports gesture controls during video playback, as well as supporting swiping controls in navigation.

Improved UPnP capabilities

gotham-upnp_play_usingInstances of XBMC throughout the house can now “speak” with each other and with other UPnP devices. Support now includes more advanced library browsing as well as “Play using…” functions, allowing XBMC to tell another device on the network to play a certain media file.

So you can browse the UPnP library on your tablet and send a video from that library straight to you main XBMC HTPC, similar to Apple’s Airplay and Google’s casting features.

Additionally when watching videos from the XBMC UPnP server, watch status will be updated so you don’t have to remember what shows you’ve already watched.

Dramatic Audio Engine Improvements

The Audio Engine introduced with XBMC 12.0 “Frodo” has been reworked to be simpler, faster, with better quality and less likelihood of breaking in XBMC 13 across all platforms. You may also notice that some users will need to reconfigure their audio settings. This is caused by the audio improvements and restructuring of the settings systems. However this should be more intuitive and user friendly than it was in XBMC 12 thanks to improvements in Settings.

On Linux there is additional good news for Desktop users who don’t use XBMC as a standalone HTPC through OpenELEC or XBMCbuntu. XBMC will now cooperate nicely with the pulseaudio server and will provide real pulseaudio support. This is a behaviour change, make sure to read the PulseAudio XBMC wiki page to learn more.

Settings Improvements

From the user perspective, three major changes will be introduced that should dramatically improve usability in XBMC settings.

First, settings have been broken down into levels starting at beginner and going all the way up the scale to expert level. The typical XBMC user should never need to go very far past the Standard settings. If installing XBMC for friends or family, it is highly encouraged that you move the settings down to Beginner level. And if a setting has disappeared that you typically expect to see, definitely browse through the settings levels, as it likely has been hidden on a more advanced level.

Second, every setting now includes a description, which may be found at the bottom of the settings page on the default Confluence skin. If a setting title is odd or is otherwise confusing, this description is intended to clear up the purpose of the setting and the result of changing it.

Third, every setting page now includes a Reset to Default option so that if you find yourself completely unable to return to a useable state in XBMC, you can always start fresh without having to perform a complete reinstall. Importantly, resetting one group of settings to default does not affect any others. So if you have video settings just right, but audio is screwed up, you can reset audio without affecting video.

Making Subtitle Search Better

Gotham 13.0 Improved subtitle search

This change should give addon developers in this area a great deal more latitude for implementing changes and fixes without needing to wait for other addon devs to submit similar fixes, all to the benefit of the user experience. From the user perspective, the only significant change will be in the way a subtitle search service is downloaded. Right now, it is already available and merely needs enabling, as there is only a single addon. In the future, the user will need to select and download their preferred addon before starting a movie and searching for subtitles.

An Extended Python and JSON-RPC API for developers

While this feature may not be as immediately noticeable upon install, it could ultimately be one of the most important changes of XBMC 13. With the extension of the API, users should soon be able to control virtually every aspect of XBMC without once touching the XBMC UI. Developers will now have unprecedented opportunity to make even more powerful remote control apps, web GUIs, and XBMC add-ons. We look forward to the community taking advantage of this extended API and creating some extraordinary features in the future.

Yet More Features

- Update to FFMPEG v1.2 which we use for audio/video playback
- Stereo audio can now be upmixed to 5.1 and sent through optical/SPDIF devices
- Various visual changes throughout the skin which should improve usability and logic.
- Improve the handling of subtitle downloading and selection
- Extend and improve the User-interface Engine which developers use to create a variety of skins to be used.
- Drop of support for Windows XP. Due to upgrades in the way we build XBMC, it is no longer possible to install XBMC onto Windows XP. For current XP users we can suggest installing OpenELEC or XBMCbuntu as a free way to use XBMC 13 as a pure media centre.

http://wiki.xbmc.org/index.php?title=XBMC_v13_%28Gotham%29_changelog


MC 12.3 – Frodo fixes!
24
Dec

First of all we wish you all happy holidays and a merry Christmas to all our users, developers, contributors and every one else. Thank you all for the support and help and for enjoying our software. Let’s hope the year 2014 will bring all of you health and happiness and of course make XBMC even more great than it already is.

Now for the important news and Christmas surprise. It has been around seven months after the release of XBMC 12.2 and we are happy to announce XBMC 12.3 with fixes for bugs found in the 12.2 release. The list of fixes contain several bug fixes that are back-ported from the ongoing development from our 13.0 Gotham release. The list only contains fixes that are deemed critical and are relatively easy applicable to the Frodo 12.2 without risking stability regressions. This means we are aware of several short comings of Frodo and trying to fix those would be to intrusive or risky to apply. This also means that 12.3 will be the last of the Frodo line and all mayor improvement will only be included in Gotham 13.0

Without further ado here’s the list of fixes included:

OSX 10.9 Maverick fixes that appeared when it was release
update PVR addons
several PVR related bugs
memory leaks
audio channel mapping
possible crash on progress dialog
and more
You can read the complete list of fixes here

Dealing with OSX 10.9

As many of you may have experienced, 10.9 has caused a number of issues for our current releases. In addition to forcing us to prepare a 12.3 (coming soon), we’ve learned that 10.9 appears to have reset security settings. Now to install XBMC, you need to right click the application after it’s been installed and select “Open” from the list (this need only be done once).

Alternatively, you can go to System Preferences -> Security & Privacy -> General. From there, unlock the lock at the bottom of the window and “Allow apps downloaded from: Anywhere.” This second method is the preferred method, as you will no longer be bothered for future XBMC updates.
Previous releases

As for the previous releases you can find the sum-up below.

Fixes from 12.2 included:

Fixed infinite loop on addon dependencies, resolves crashing problem that arrose immediately post 12.1 launch
Numerous UPnP fixes
Memory leak fixed when XBMC is minimized
Various Raspberry Pi playback fixes and software codec support
Fixed OSX audio mixing
Fixed some audio-related crashes in Linux builds
AirPlay fixes
Bluray folder resume-bookmarks now work
Ability to scan for new content on file folders has been reimplemented
Language updates from Transifex
Fixes from 12.1 included:

XBMC now supports using OSX’s default output device for audio as well as hardware decoding with Intel GPUs in OSX
XBMC no longer hogs audio for Linux and on resume audio will continue to work in Linux
Full iPhone 5 resolution is now enabled
Volume buttons on Android devices now control Android volume, rather than XBMC volume
Volume buttons on OSX devices once again control OSX volume, rather than XBMC volume
Player optimization on the Raspberry Pi, including more efficient playback, better subtitle support, and many crash fixes
iOS 6 support on the AppleTV 2.
XBMC does not crash when listed on the AppleTV top shelf
Added support for additional Xbox 360 controller types
Broader and more intelligent support for CEC devices
Fixed problems with several addons due to broken binary read/write in our python interface
Language fixes, including 7 new languages: Albanian, Burmese, Malay, Persian (Iran), Tamil (India), Uzbek, Vietnamese
AirPlay fixes, including making discovery of XBMC more reliable on OSX
Numerous crashing and stability fixes across all platforms
For all users interested in maximum stability, we highly recommend that you update from 12.1 to 12.2. This is the XBMC you were looking for.


XBMC 13 Gotham – September and October

Because of our Devcon 2013 meeting we were to busy to put up a decent monthly blog post. So let’s sum up the changes done so far after the September cyle.

September cycle

ActiveAE – A Simpler Approach to Audio

With the September month’s alpha, we are also excited to introduce ActiveAE, an engine for audio that’s based off AudioEngine but designed to be faster, simpler, and lighter on the CPU. ActiveAE relies on FFmpeg for audio conversion and is available now on Windows, Linux, BSD, and Android. Very early work exists to get it working on OSX too, though no set date exists for its incorporation.

Features of ActiveAE include its being an event-based system; CPU load is significantly reduced, allowing for implementation on weaker systems like Android; Resampler quality can be chosen; gapless playback is now working; and E-AC3 is supported. In addition, quite a lot of little, difficult to narrow down bugs have been tracked down and fixed, including code that reaches all the way into SSE. This hopefully solves the issues we had in our Frodo release that a minority of the users experienced and improves the audio experience in general.

The list of individuals responsible for all this work is quite extensive with pieces touched by nearly the entire team, including wiso’s work on Windows and Voyager’s work debugging SSE and giving feedback, not to mention input from almost everyone on the Audio Settings rewrite. Special mention should go to both FernetMenta and fritsch, who led the charge. Finally, an extra special thanks to the many users who provided testing and feedback in the ActiveAE testing thread. This work couldn’t have been done without you.

As a heads up for next month, w have also refurbished the audio settings to make them easier to configure. You’ll be able to see that work now in nightlies or in next month’s alpha.

Of course there were more changes, but those changes mostly contained code re-factoring/improvement and bugfixing.

A complete change log for the interested can be found here

October Cycle

Actually for October there isn’t much to report for new features added. This months list contains a whole list of code re-factoring/improvement and bugfixing which we don’t want to bore you with.

Android MediaCodec:
This allows native use of the Android API for video playback on Android 4.1 (and up) devices

Android x86 architecture support:
We already provided Android build that run on ARM architecture devices however from this month on we will also provide x86 architecture builds.

Ability to development on non-jailbroken devices:
This allows developers who have an Apple developer account (so not for regular users!) to be able to run and development XBMC on non-jailbroken devices. This is however without and video HW acceleration support. So again, this is NOT for normal users, only for developers.

Complete change log for the interested can be found here.

Dealing with OSX 10.9
As many of you may have experienced, 10.9 has caused a number of issues for our current releases. In addition to forcing us to prepare a 12.3 (coming soon), we’ve learned that 10.9 appears to have reset security settings. Now to install XBMC, you need to right click the application after it’s been installed and select “Open” from the list (this need only be done once).

Alternatively, you can go to System Preferences -> Security & Privacy -> General. From there, unlock the lock at the bottom of the window and “Allow apps downloaded from: Anywhere.” This second method is the preferred method, as you will no longer be bothered for future XBMC updates.

Conclusion
So if you feel you are ready to try out a monthly build, it’s time to start downloading. Be aware though, that this is still alpha software which contains potentially several bugs. There is a good chance that this alpha will break on you.


XBMC 13 – Gotham – August Cycle

For those keeping track, we’ve just completed alpha #7 in the August cycle, which includes two absolutely massive new features: Stereoscopic 3D support and Android Hardware video decoding. As always, the monthly alpha build is available on our Snapshots page, and the typical warning applies: this is alpha software; things are very likely to break. With that said, let’s look at what we’ve been working on.

Android Hardware Decoding
It’s been a long time coming, but we are excited to announce that hardware decoding of video has finally made its way to the XBMC for Android platform. The most important caveat is that the implemented hardware decoding does not support AmLogic or Allwinner chipsets, and it does require Android 4.0 (“Ice Cream Sandwich”) or higher to run. With that said, the more popular tablets sold in the past year, such as the Nexus 7 and 10, should work quite well with this alpha, and users are welcome to discuss their experiences in the comments below. Kudos to Koying for his work on this project.

Stereoscopic 3D Rendering
For you lovers of 3D out there, we are also pleased to say that we now support 3D movies encoded in the following formats: SBS, TAB, anaglyph, and interlaced (on supported platforms for passive TVs). Unfortunately, XBMC cannot yet support 3D blurays and cannot provide hardware acceleration for FullSBS/TAB movies (therefore limiting those videos to relatively high powered CPUs).

A useful feature that also comes with this alpha is a dedicated button to toggle 3D mode, which has two benefits: First, while XBMC should automatically recognize 3D-encoded movies, if it fails to recognize the format, users can force 3D mode. Second, users are now welcome to encode all their ripped blu-rays into 3D and skip making a second encode in 2D, because toggling off 3D mode on a 3D recognized movie will simply display the film in traditional 2D. This button requires an update to your skin of choice, so, if you are not using Confluence, feel free to point the feature out to your favorite Skilled Skinner.

Some of the newly available 3D Options

Context Menu Clean-up
In addition to bigger features, if you’ve been following along, you know that we’ve been working for quite some time on making the entire user experience more friendly. To that end, this past month has been one of cleaning up the context menu. We’ve worked to clean it up in two ways. First, we’ve pulled items out that don’t actually make sense to be in a context menu. Second, we’ve moved some options that people rarely use into a second “Manage” dialog.

In your day-to-day experience, this means the Update Library option is now always available in the side-bar, as can be seen in the below picture. This is quite similar to how we’ve moved the different setting levels (Basic/Standard/Advanced/Expert) to the sidebar on the System Settings pages.

UpdateLibrary

And the context menu has a new option to explore the Manage menu…

ManageOption
Manage… option

Manage... menu for TV shows
Manage… menu for TV shows

Goodbye Windows XP
We are happy to announce that we will be joining Microsoft in dropping support for Windows XP in 2014 by dropping support for XP with XBMC 13. At present, there are certain features that are being held back by our continuing support of the XP platform, and the best path forward is to halt support on the roughly 12 year old OS. Vista, 7, and 8 will all continue to be supported from this point forward.

Hasta la XP, baby.

Bug List and Other Changes
A change that certainly couldn’t be called a feature involves Weather Underground. Unfortunately, WU is currently being hit with far more XBMC traffic than even a full sponsorship could pay for. To resolve this, at least in the short term, XBMC 13 will now ship without a default weather app. Users who are upgrading will not see a change, and new users are welcome to re-download the addon if they choose.

Finally, below are some notable bugs fixed with this month’s update

EPG no longer crashes when there is no EPG data
Music Database fixes
font processing fixes
Fixed non-trivial dirty rectangle modes
Fix gain for MP3 files (vs FLAC and other audio files)
Fix file parse bugs (results in speedier file parsing)
Numerous Raspberry Pi fixes

Conclusion
Of course, as always, this is merely a very small sample of the many changes in this cycle. If you are feeling a bit brave and a bit lucky, it’s time to start downloading. Be aware though, that this is very alpha software with potentially numerous bugs. There is a good chance that this alpha will break on you.


XBMC 13 -Gotham – June and July Cycles

As has been the case for a few months now, for those who just can’t wait for a write-up about the newest alpha but tend to steer clear of the bleeding edge of nightlies, the new build should typically be available on the 1st of the month at mirrors.xbmc.org/snapshots.

With that said, we’ve now completed months #5 and #6 of our monthly development cycle, and there’s much to talk about.

System-Wide
These past two months have primarily seen the growth and refinement of already existing system-wide features. A few more notable of those features include:

Ripped CDs are now automatically added the the music library, and ripping support has been extended to allow for encoding into AAC and WMA, in addition to the currently supported codecs.

One of the first big benefits of the settings refactor has been the inclusion of new settings descriptions. Now, when you highlight a setting that previously made next to no sense, a small description will pop up clarifying what the setting actually accomplishes, as can be seen near the bottom of the below image.

settings_descriptions

Those familiar with Github are encouraged to consider adding more settings descriptions.

Additionally, profiles can now have their settings levels locked, so if your kids have their own profile, they can’t accidentally switch to more advanced settings, causing major problems throughout XBMC.

The default Wunderground addon has been updated to work with recent builds of XBMC. This primarily results in fixes for previous alphas, but also adds support for 5 locations, and allows for more appropriate labels in certain cases. Backwards compatibility was removed with this update, so users of this addon who are still running Eden may find weather no longer works. Those users are encouraged to switch to the Yahoo weather addon or update to XBMC 12.2.

For those users who experience exceptional lag over their local network, a new Advanced Setting has been included that allows significant cacheing over the network. In most modern networks, this setting should not be necessary, but it is useful in some edge cases.

Finally, recent work has been done to speed up the pace at which XBMC loads thumbnails for videos without any attached artwork. The speed of thumbnail loading had regressed since XBMC 11. This work returned some of that speed.

OS-specific Updates
Both XBMC for Windows and OSX now support their respective copy/paste functions (either ctrl+v or CMD+v).

XBMC for Android has finally be updated to match the other platforms with Zeroconf support. In particular, this means it can act as an Airplay receiver. Additionally, XBMC can now act as a default player of video, audio, and image files when launched from an Android file browser.


XBMC 12.2 - Even More Frodo!
May 3rd, 2013

About a month and a half after the release of XBMC 12.1, we are happy to announce XBMC 12.2 with substantial fixes for 12.1 and 12.0 across all platforms. Fixes include:

Fixed infinite loop on addon dependencies, resolves crashing problem that arrose immediately post 12.1 launch
Numerous UPnP fixes
Memory leak fixed when XBMC is minimized
Various Raspberry Pi playback fixes and software codec support
Fixed OSX audio mixing
Fixed some audio-related crashes in Linux builds
AirPlay fixes
Bluray folder resume-bookmarks now work
Ability to scan for new content on file folders has been reimplemented
Language updates from Transifex
Fixes from 12.1 included:

XBMC now supports using OSX’s default output device for audio as well as hardware decoding with Intel GPUs in OSX
XBMC no longer hogs audio for Linux and on resume audio will continue to work in Linux
Full iPhone 5 resolution is now enabled
Volume buttons on Android devices now control Android volume, rather than XBMC volume
Volume buttons on OSX devices once again control OSX volume, rather than XBMC volume
Player optimization on the Raspberry Pi, including more efficient playback, better subtitle support, and many crash fixes
iOS 6 support on the AppleTV 2.
XBMC does not crash when listed on the AppleTV top shelf
Added support for additional Xbox 360 controller types
Broader and more intelligent support for CEC devices
Fixed problems with several addons due to broken binary read/write in our python interface
Language fixes, including 7 new languages: Albanian, Burmese, Malay, Persian (Iran), Tamil (India), Uzbek, Vietnamese
AirPlay fixes, including making discovery of XBMC more reliable on OSX
Numerous crashing and stability fixes across all platforms
For all users interested in maximum stability, we highly recommend that you update from 12.1 to 12.2. This is the XBMC you were looking for.


XBMC 13 - Gotham - March Cycle
April 3rd, 2013natethomas

We are now finished with month #2 of our monthly development cycle for XBMC 13 – Gotham. This month we see new features for iOS, Android, and PVR, as well as a new notification system, a new method for sorting images, and much more.

iOS
Dev ulion has added a boatload of new items to XBMC for iOS this month, including speed and stability fixes, along with a few major new features. XBMC is now able to continue playing audio in the background on iOS, with support for the native media controller bar as well as headphone controls on the lock screen and multi-task bar. In order to continue playing music, the user will need to press play again in the multi-task bar or lock screen or with the headphone controls.

Music will also resume after an interruption such as a phone call. Additionally, thumbnail art and other info about the audio currently playing will be available on the lock screen, though this feature requires iOS 5+. Keeping video running in the background is not yet supported.

This provides for yet another means of controlling media around the house. Now, you can send the media from XBMC on your iOS device to other uPnP devices with Play Using and actually control that media from your iOS device while XBMC is running in the background. While video running in the background is not controllable on your iOS device, video IS controllable in the background if it has been sent to other devices using Play Using.

Android
While very few features visible to the user have been included this cycle, a number of major under-the-hood features have been included by TheUni which will allow XBMC to better communicate with Android and other Android applications in the future. The specific future actions this will allow remain to be seen. Additionally, starting XBMC as the launcher should no longer result in a crashes and black screens.

PVR
In PVR news, there an Electronic Program Guide (or EPG) button has been added to the Home Screen as a submenu item for Live TV, so that users can now have easy access to a list of all upcoming content. Additionally, when tuning a channel that isn’t currently working, XBMC will now be able to show what channel you’ve landed on.

System-wide
Many users turn off their RSS feed in XBMC and rarely visit the front page of XBMC.org, which means they may find themselves unaware that a major release has just occurred. With this cycle a pop-up has now been incorporated by Martijn that will occasionally check to see if a new version of XBMC is available. If it is, the user will be prompted to visit XBMC.org and download. The pop-up can be easily dismissed. Upon the release of XBMC 13, the pop-up will only show for final releases and bug fixes.

This pop-up is especially noteworthy at it is one of the first issues posted in our public Team Member discussion area in the forum that’s been resolved. With luck, that will become more and more useful as an area for open, public discussion.

The bug that was causing all the crashing early last month, due to two conflicting addons, has been resolve. The issue at the time was that both addons depended on each other, creating an ugly infinite loop. That particular infinite loop is no longer possible.

User rubpa has added a new sort method for images. Now, users can sort by the date the pictures were taken, data that is stored in the EXIF timestamps of every image.

Finally, theuni and Montellese are working on two projects that seek to unify things.

Theuni has unified dependencies. This massive project has provided the Team and other developers a much cleaner, simpler, faster, and easier building process. From this point forward, there should be significantly fewer problems as we release each monthly development cycle alpha.

Montellese, meanwhile, is unifying the touch input system. Theoretically, this should make a single change to the touch input system result in correct solutions across all the touch platforms, as well as making it much easier to add touch input to additional platforms as they arrise. At present, Android and iOS have been included with this cycle. Soon, Windows and Linux touch input systems should also be included.


XBMC 12.1
March 18th, 2013natethomas18 comments

About a month and a half after the release of XBMC 12.0, we are happy to announce XBMC 12.1 with substantial fixes for 12.0 across all platforms. Fixes include:

XBMC now supports using OSX’s default output device for audio as well as hardware decoding with Intel GPUs in OSX
XBMC no longer hogs audio for Linux and on resume audio will continue to work in Linux
Full iPhone 5 resolution is now enabled
Volume buttons on Android devices now control Android volume, rather than XBMC volume
Volume buttons on OSX devices once again control OSX volume, rather than XBMC volume
Player optimization on the Raspberry Pi, including more efficient playback, better subtitle support, and many crash fixes
iOS 6 support on the AppleTV 2.
XBMC does not crash when listed on the AppleTV top shelf
Added support for additional Xbox 360 controller types
Broader and more intelligent support for CEC devices
Fixed problems with several addons due to broken binary read/write in our python interface
Language fixes, including 7 new languages: Albanian, Burmese, Malay, Persian (Iran), Tamil (India), Uzbek, Vietnamese
AirPlay fixes, including making discovery of XBMC more reliable on OSX
Numerous crashing and stability fixes across all platforms


XBMC 12.0 - Frodo
January 29th, 2013natethomasLeave a comment

Everyone at Team XBMC is proud and excited to announce the long awaited XBMC 12 “Frodo.” Features for XBMC 12 include:

HD audio support, including DTS-MA and Dolby True-HD, via the new XBMC AudioEngine (OSX/iOS not yet available)
Live TV and PVR support
h.264 10bit (aka Hi10P) video software decoding for anime
64bit support in OSX to match the 64bit support in Linux
Improved image support, allowing the database to accomodate numerous additional image types and more interesting and complex skins
Support for the Raspberry PI
Initial support for the Android platform
Improved AirPlay support across all platforms, including AirPlay audio in XBMC for Windows to match the other platforms
Improved controller support in Windows and Linux
Advanced Filtering in the library
Video library tags to complement movie sets
Advanced UPnP sharing
Default video languages now match the language being used by XBMC
Translations now powered by Transifex

http://wiki.xbmc.org/index.php?title=XBMC%20v12%20(Frodo)%20changelog


XBMC 12 Frodo - Release Candidate 3
January 3rd, 2013natethomas11 comments
We would like to take this time to announce the third release candidate for XBMC 12. Features for XBMC 12 include:

HD audio support, including DTS-MA and Dolby True-HD, via the new XBMC AudioEngine
Live TV and PVR support
h.264 10bit (aka Hi10P) video software decoding for anime
64bit support in OSX to match the 64bit support in Linux
Improved image support, allowing the database to accomodate numerous additional image types
Support for the Raspberry PI
Initial support for the Android platform
Improved Airplay support across all platforms, including Airplay audio in XBMC for Windows to match the other platforms
Improved controller support in Windows and Linux
Advanced Filtering in the library
Advanced UPnP sharing
Translations now powered by Transifex
At this point, XBMC 12 is entirely feature complete. All changes from this point forward will exclusively include fixes for replicable bugs necessary to reach final release.

Fixes between RC2 and RC3 are entirely stability fixes. For the full list, visit our Github milestones for RC3. As always, please do not report bugs or other issues in Github. If you need to report a verified bug, feel free to use Trac.

A quick note for Linux users, PVR addons have now been made a separate install from XBMC and can be found in the same PPA as XBMC. Each addon will be labeled “xbmc-pvr-[plugin-name].”


XBMC 12 Frodo - Release Candidate 2
December 20th, 2012natethomasLeave a comment
We would quickly like to take this time to announce the second release candidate for XBMC 12. Features for XBMC 12 include:

HD audio support, including DTS-MA and Dolby True-HD, via the new XBMC AudioEngine
Live TV and PVR support
h.264 10bit (aka Hi10P) video software decoding for anime
64bit support in OSX to match the 64bit support in Linux
Improved image support, allowing the database to accomodate numerous additional image types
Support for the Raspberry PI
Initial support for the Android platform
Improved Airplay support across all platforms, including Airplay audio in XBMC for Windows to match the other platforms
Improved controller support in Windows and Linux
Advanced Filtering in the library
Advanced UPnP sharing
Translations now powered by Transifex
At this point, XBMC 12 is entirely feature complete. All changes from this point forward will exclusively include fixes for replicable bugs necessary to reach final release.


XBMC 12 Frodo - Release Candidate 1
December 12th, 2012natethomas6 comments
We would quickly like to take this time to announce the first release candidate for XBMC 12. Features for XBMC 12 include:

HD audio support, including DTS-MA and Dolby True-HD, via the new XBMC AudioEngine
Live TV and PVR support
h.264 10bit (aka Hi10P) video software decoding for anime
64bit support in OSX to match the 64bit support in Linux
Improved image support, allowing the database to accomodate numerous additional image types
Support for the Raspberry PI
Initial support for the Android platform
Improved Airplay support across all platforms
Improved controller support in Windows and Linux
Advanced Filtering in the library
Advanced UPnP sharing
Translations now powered by Transifex
At this point, XBMC 12 is entirely feature complete. All changes from this point forward will exclusively include fixes for replicable bugs necessary to reach final release.


XBMC 12 Frodo - Beta 3
December 8th, 2012natethomas19 comments
Hot on the heels of Beta 2, we are excited to release Beta 3. This release includes a number of fixes as we work to resolve issues that have cropped up since Beta 2 and also attempt to isolate some issues that still exist. For a quick run down of some of the big ones:

Users of Android 4.2 should now be able to install and run XBMC for Android.
The upgrade path of Windows users has been a little tricky. Users may upgrade to beta and discover the audio no longer works. This is due to a bit of trickiness with the AudioEngine upgrade. For Audiophiles to get the most out of AE, we recommend that you check out the AE Wiki entry.
For those Windows users who find themselves without sound, the simple fix is to go to System->system->Audio Output and switch WASAPI to DirectSound. Users doing a clean install of XBMC for Windows Beta 3 should have no problem.
PVR Addons have been included with XBMC for Windows, matching up with most other ports.
We are still only partially complete on translations for numerous languages, including Romanian, Japanese, Estonian, Bosnian, Serbian, Hindi, and more. If you feel comfortable with one of these languages, but don’t know how to help, feel free to visit our forum thread that explains how to help translate XBMC using Transifex. UPDATE: Additionally, Transifex is used for translations for addons and skins, so you are always welcome to go back to a more complete language and help with any unfinished addons.
Finally, we’ve begun compiling a list of some of the more frequently asked questions about the transition from XBMC 11 Eden to XBMC 12 Frodo. If you haven’t made the switch yet, or just want to read about what other people are running into, please visit the XBMC 12 Frodo FAQ.


XBMC 12 Frodo - Beta 2 Now with Android!
December 2nd, 2012natethomas21 comments
Update: The permissions error on the Android download link has been fixed.

We are excited to announce Beta 2 of XBMC 12 today, as it brings with it many fixes and one long awaited major update. As you know, XBMC currently supports OSX, Linux, Windows, iOS, and the ARM-based Raspberry Pi. That’s a great list, but anyone paying attention could tell you that a massive, critical platform is still missing. Well, Scott Davilla and Cory Fields (theuni) have been working tirelessly to bring one more platform to the fold. And we’re all excited to say that we are finally ready to release the very first beta of XBMC for Android.

To run this beta, you will need a fairly modern Android phone, tablet, or other device. We have determined that any Android device that doesn’t include the NEON extension is simply going to run too slowly to be useable. If you are uncertain whether your device is supported, feel free to visit the XBMC for Android compatibility list.

Alternatively, you can simply install the XBMC for Android apk. If your device is not supported, XBMC will post a warning when you try to launch the app and exit out. If it is, and it isn’t included on the compatibility list, feel free to add it.

One Android issue worth mentioning: at present XBMC is likely to load fairly slowly on the first run as it unpacks itself. This is expected behavior. After first run, it should load quite a bit faster.

Update 2: Users should be aware that an update to Android 4.2 appears to have temporarily broken XBMC support for all you Nexus and Cyanogenmod users (and anyone else running 4.2). Beta3 should be right around the corner, and we hope to have a fix in place by the time that rolls out.

Controller Support
Without a doubt, one of the most popular controllers for PC at present is the Xbox 360 Controller. It is invariably the most supported controller for all AAA title Windows games (along with numerous games being ported for Steam for Linux), so it was undoubtedly time for the controller to become fully plug and play compatible with XBMC. Thanks to the work of Shiretoko212, rowan.border, and all those who contributed in this thread, the previously outdated 360 keymap has been updated and dramatically improved so that now almost any 360 controller, regardless of version, should be immediately recognized by XBMC assuming a driver is in place. For those interested in using their 360 controller to control XBMC, check out this 360 button map to show what all the buttons do in XBMC.

Audio Fixes
Easily the number one reported issue with Beta1 was a lack of sound in Windows. This issue was relatively simply resolved by switching from WASAPI to DirectSound as the default output. Users who prefer WASAPI can still easily switch back in System->Audio Output.

Other Fixes
Needless to say, there were numerous other fixes, including fixes to nodes and smartplaylists, the volume range of Airtunes in Windows, a speedup of EPG data importing, solving a minor files issue, and others. To see all the changes, feel free to refer to the Beta2 Git Changelog. Additionally, there are several other issues still being worked on, and more will likely crop up during Beta testing. If you would like to report an issue, please search for the issue in our forums first and report any verified bugs in Trac.


XBMC 12.0 Frodo - Beta 1
November 15th, 2012

It’s been a mere eight months since Team XBMC released XBMC 11. If you’ve been following along with us in that time, you already know about most of the new features, changes, and updates that our entire team has been working tirelessly to put into place. But you also know that all those features have only been available in monthly alpha builds.

Now we are excited to say that we are finally ready to roll out the very first beta of XBMC 12 Frodo.

The Name
In the past, we’ve traditionally named our releases after fantastical places like Camelot, Babylon, and Eden. This time around, on the release set to be titled with the letter ‘F’, we decided to take a slight break from that naming process to honor our roots. Ten years ago, an individual with the username Frodo joined the Xbox Media Player team, bringing along his open source software project called YAMP. With the addition of Frodo’s project the three founders, Frodo, d7o3g4q, and RUNTiME, released the first non-beta version of the Xbox Media Player – XBMP 2.0 – as open source software. Frodo then spearheaded the move from XBMP to the more feature rich XBMC, including acting as the primary author for the initial UI engine.

Today, thanks to the three founders’ decision to release open source, hundreds, if not thousands of people have contributed to XBMC in the form of core code, addons, skins, scripts, hosting, evangelizing, and more. Due in part to its open nature, XBMC has been ported to every major viable operating system and architecture. Skilled skinners have succeeded in making skins that resemble almost every major 10&#8242; UI released in the past ten years, along with dozens of completely unique looks seen nowhere else. XBMC can be had on devices as inexpensive as $25 and can be the primary UI for PCs a dozen times more powerful than the original Xbox was. And for all that, it feels like we’ve only scraped the surface of XBMC’s potential, all because three people decided the project would be better off if it were released as free software.

For that reason – and for so many others – we choose to honor our founders and the past ten years by naming XBMC 12 after one of them. Thanks, Frodo. And thanks d7o3g4q and RUNTiME as well. It’s been a great ten years.

The Features
Thanks to an incredibly successful GSoC experience and numerous dedicated developers who have been working on many projects for years, XBMC 12 figures to be one of the most anticipated feature updates in a long time. Features include…

HD audio support, including DTS-MA and Dolby True-HD, via the new XBMC AudioEngine
Live TV and PVR support
h.264 10bit (aka Hi10P) video software decoding for anime
64bit support in OSX to match the 64bit support in Linux
Improved image support, allowing the database to accomodate numerous additional image types
Support for the Raspberry PI
Initial support for the Android platform
Improved Airplay support across all platforms
Advanced Filtering in the library
Advanced UPnP sharing
Translations now powered by Transifex


XBMC 12.0 Alpha 7

October Cycle
The current goal is to release the first Beta of XBMC 12 at some time mid-November. At that time, we will review all the many features that have been added since the release of Eden. Likewise, during the Beta cycle, we’d like to continue to highlight the work done by our Google Summer of Code students in one or two posts.

For now, we will simply review the new features submitted during the last dev cycle before feature freeze.

UPnP Update

Just as we hit the feature freeze wire, a significant portion of one of the remaining most frequently requested features was added to XBMC. alcoheca’s GSOC project, a massive update of UPnP to make XBMC a truly capable UPnP server is now part of mainline. While transcoding is not part of the update, all metadata, images, and library functions including watched and unwatched status are now available depending on your client – naturally, an XBMC client is best, though efforts are ongoing to work with the numerous alternative clients that all use slightly different specs from one another.

Unfortunately, using XBMC as a UPnP server is still not the preferred method for an XBMC client. For one thing, Confluence and all current skins are designed to expect only a local database or a MySQL database masquerading as a local database, which means one would theoretically need to re-scrape the UPnP server into your local library for the TV shows link to show up in the home screen, which immediately cuts out much of the benefit of a dedicated UPnP server.* For another, at present while the server can tell the client what has and has not been watched, a major bug exists in that the client cannot tell the server the same thing. This means, if you mark Big Buck Bunny as watched on your XBMC client, the watched status on the server won’t be updated. For that matter, since you are using the server library, Big Buck Bunny won’t be marked as watched on your client either.

*For early testers, we highly recommend that you NOT Set Content, if that is still an option for you, as it will likely cause problems in the system.

As such, for now continuing to use SMB or NFS shares on your XBMC clients is still the recommended route, but we will keep you updated on the progress of UPnP, including any bug fixes throughout the Beta process. Additionally, skilled skinners, we are excited to see if and how you incorporate UPnP nodes into your design. To see an ongoing discussion of how UPnP will be improved now and in the future, feel free to visit alcoheca’s GSoC forum thread.

Advanced Filtering

If you have been reading the monthly cycle updates, you know that Montellese has been working on major improvements to the underlying XBMC library. A significant culmination of that work has been added this month in the form of the newly updated Filter.


The New Media Filter
Now those of you with an extensive library will be able to filter your library by any number of new, simple methods, including title, rating, year, actor, whether the series is ongoing, etc., and you can of course combine as many of those methods as you like for laser focus. Additionally, this filtering will occur in realtime, so the moment you narrow the span of years, your library will immediately narrow to meet the specification without any need of hitting the “OK” button.

Many More

Needless to say, because October was feature freeze month, numerous additional features have been added, including…

numerous JSON-RPC updates, including PVR support, optimizations, better conflict handling, and better webserver support by Montellese
PVR timeshift support (if the backend supports timeshift) – hat tip to non-team member Margo for this one
improvements to the OMXplayer, the media player of Raspberry Pi by gimli
Additionally, OMXplayer can now play back DVD ISOs if users have gotten the MPEG2 codec license thanks to user epideme
the CD ripper now works in the background thanks to Spiff
panoramic photo panning support by Montellese
Dirty Region support is now on by default by TheUni
Further improved image handling in the database, allowing one to select fanart, poster, banner, and thumb, rather than forcing the choice between downloading posters and downloading banners – kudos to Jonathan Marshall and Montellese for this work.
As always, this is a mere selection of numerous changes from this month. For a full list, feel free to check out the GitHub changelog. Or, if you are feeling a bit brave and a bit lucky, just start downloading.

Windows and OSX
Apple TV and iOS installation instructions
Given the additional complexities of distribution, builds for Linux are not currently available at XBMC.org. A number of developers are currently hard at work on the problem however. With luck, we should finally have a Linux PPA available by the time the Betas begin rolling out.


XBMC 12.0 Alpha 6 October 10th, 201

As mentioned previously, we have now moved into a monthly development cycle, in which we merge new features at the beginning of the month and then perform bug fixes through the rest of the month. This means, at the end of every month, developers, bug-reporters, and those willing to deal with potentially highly unstable builds can try a snapshot from the current development cycle, and the organization, in turn, will have a more stable and predictable development process. For those of you who would prefer a stable version of XBMC, we will always recommend the most recent stable release (XBMC 11.0), but for the brave, you are welcome to try the end of the month build. To give an idea of just how unstable/alpha these builds can be, there will almost certainly be months in which some platforms won’t actually have usable builds. As always, we recommend you backup your userdata folder before upgrading.

With that said, let’s review some of the more notable changes in the September Changelog.

Before we do though, we should note that this month will be slightly different than previous months. As we are beginning to gear up for Frodo, a significant number of new, big features that touch numerous portions of the whole program are being added. With all of these new features added, there is a very good chance that this month’s snapshot will be even less stable than normal.

Personal Video Recorder (PVR) support
It is, without a doubt, one of the single most requested features for XBMC, and we are happy to announce that PVR support has been added to mainline XBMC, which will allow users with a TV tuner to watch live TV, listen to radio, view an EPG, schedule recordings, and more.

XBMC’s approach to PVR support is somewhat unlike its approach to other features. Rather than supplying our own PVR software, a task that likely would have taken much, much more time, particularly if we had wanted any hope of making it work across all platforms, we have determined that there are already numerous PVR software platforms available and ready to serve up TV to XBMC. So we made it possible for XBMC to speak with these other applications through PVR addons. For those familiar with the terminology, XBMC acts as the frontend and the software that tunes and records television acts as the backend.

At present, PVR support remains very much a work in progress. The PVR addons required to get XBMC speaking with your chosen backend still need to be compiled by hand. There is no combination of hardware and backend software that is more highly recommended than any other combination.

The Team does not recommend that you attempt running PVR now, unless you are pretty comfortable working with the guts of XBMC and don’t mind getting your hands dirty. In the coming months, documentation and PVR addon support should become much more user friendly.

For more on PVR, feel free to visit our Wiki section and our PVR Help forum. And check out our list of frequently asked questions. For more images of PVR in action, scroll to the end of this post.

Raspberry Pi Support
As many of you are aware, XBMC has already been available on the Raspberry Pi for quite some time. However, until now, that support has not been a part of mainline XBMC. With this change, OMXPlayer (the player used to playback 1080p video on the ARM powered Pi) enters mainline XBMC as do many under the hood features for ARM and RaspberryPi support.

So Many Others
Additional features this month include:

The Test Suite developed by amejia for Google Summer of Code, designed to make testing various parts of XBMC easier and faster
A code generated scripting engine that comes from Jim Carroll that performs two separate tasks. First, it makes it much easier for XBMC developers to open up the XBMC API to addon writers. Second, it opens up the possibility of more easily writing addons in the future in code other than python.
Improved picture zooming and rotating on touchscreen devices
Tagging support for tv shows and music videos so that they match the tagging support already available in movies
Improvements in slideshow movement.
Additional GUI speedups for Android

https://github.com/xbmc/xbmc/issues?milestone=5&state=closed


XBMC 12.0 Alpha 5 September 6th, 2012

As mentioned previously, we have now moved into a monthly development cycle, in which we merge new features at the beginning of the month and then perform bug fixes through the rest of the month. This means, at the end of every month, developers, bug-reporters, and those willing to deal with potentially highly unstable builds can try a snapshot from the current development cycle, and the organization, in turn, will have a more stable and predictable development process. For those of you who would prefer a stable version of XBMC, we will always recommend the most recent stable release (XBMC 11.0), but for the brave, you are welcome to try the end of the month build. To give an idea of just how unstable/alpha these builds can be, there will almost certainly be months in which some platforms won’t actually have usable builds. As always, we recommend you backup your userdata folder before upgrading.

With that said, let’s review some of the more notable changes in the August Changelog.

Touchscreen Keyboard Optimization
With the push into tablets and the continued support of iOS devices, it’s becoming increasingly critical that XBMC provide a better user experience for touchscreen input. As such, the first feature of this month’s Cycle is a refactor of our GUI Keyboard to allow for native onscreen keyboards. This means the keyboard that you see while using other software on iOS will be the same keyboard you see while using XBMC.

Artist-based Smartplaylists
For those who are not aware, XBMC Smartplaylists are a sort of filter that should not be confused with something like an iTunes Auto Playlist, as they behave differently. An iTunes playlist is typically a list of songs meant to be played in order or randomly, one right after another. An XBMC Smartplaylist is merely a filtered list from which one can pick an individual song or video, and once the song or video has ended, the user will be returned to the list to select another item.

The vast majority of dev Montellese’s GSoC work this summer has been dedicated to speeding up and refining Smartplaylists so that searching and filtering your content is faster and easier than ever before, and all done in real time. This month, he added Artist-based Smartplaylists, so that users can sort and filter their music by topics such as artist, genre, moods, styles, born, bandformed, disbanded, died, biography, and instruments, with the potential of adding even greater filtering support in the future.

Conclusion
As always, this is merely a sample of the many changes this cycle. For a full list of all the August changes, feel free to take a look at our list of August milestones. Also, keep an eye out for both the September Cycle and regular stories on the blog, as we’ve quite a bit of upcoming news. Or, if you are feeling a bit brave and a bit lucky, just start downloading.

Windows and OSX (64bit OSX will be available in the morning US time)
Apple TV and iOS installation instructions (also available in the morning US time).
Given the additional complexities of distribution, builds for Linux are not currently available at XBMC.org.
Finally, a note for those of you who are tracking and submitting bugs. You may notice that Github has an “Issues” section. The Team would very much appreciate it if you did not submit bug reports through that section, but rather continued to use the forums and Trac. At the moment, the Team is using Issues as a concise means of grouping and identifying particular bugs that they gather from the forum and Trac sources. Thanks for your help!

https://github.com/xbmc/xbmc/issues?milestone=5&state=closed


XBMC 12.0 Alpha 4 August 14th, 2012

As mentioned previously, we have now moved into a monthly development cycle, in which we merge new features at the beginning of the month and then perform bug fixes through the rest of the month. This means, at the end of every month, developers, bug-reporters, and those willing to deal with potentially highly unstable builds can try a snapshot from the current development cycle, and the organization, in turn, will have a more stable and predictable development process. For those of you who would prefer a stable version of XBMC, we will always recommend the most recent stable release (XBMC 11.0), but for the brave, you are welcome to try the end of the month build. To give an idea of just how unstable/alpha these builds can be, there will almost certainly be months in which some platforms won’t actually have usable builds. As always, we recommend you backup your userdata folder before upgrading.

With that said, let’s review some of the more notable changes in the July Changelog.

Embedded Fixes
As is to be expected, now that AudioEngine has been rolled into XBMC proper, other developers are beginning to wrap their heads around how AE affects various components of the XBMC experience and are providing fixes to streamline the process. One of the first major fixes is Dirty Audio, which works quite a lot like Dirty Video. In the past, AE was “always on,” which resulted in the loss of many CPU cycles on embedded devices like the Apple TV and Android. Now, AE is a little smarter and stops doing its conversion work when no sound is output.

Additionally, up to now, XBMC has been running a huge number of SQL queries at startup. These queries haven’t been a big problem for powerful x86 processors, because the queries have not be overly intensive on CPU cycles. The same is not necessarily true on embedded systems. After an extensive round of SQL query optimization, the amount of queries at startup have been cut by 70%, which could have a powerful effect on iOS and Android boot times.

Google Summer of… Database Improvement – Tags
The work being done by devs JMarshall and Montellese as sponsored by GSoC has resulted in a stream of new updates and features this month. In particular, because scraped moviesets are intentionally limited to one per movie for clarity by TheMovieDb, movies (and potentially other media in the future) can now be tagged with additional info by the user with Tags. Think of Tags as personal moviesets that the user can create in the XBMC interface. At the moment, tags are limited to movies, but can be extended to tv shows and music videos in the future. Below is a quick video of how Tags work.



Audio Database Improvements
Newest team member night199uk has provided fixes to the music library that make it smarter at handling multiple artists and albums with the additional benefit of allowing XBMC to better scrape the MusicBrainz encyclopedia.

CEC updates
New fixes for the CEC Adapter have been introduced to the code that introduce wake over CEC and numerous other fixes and features. For a list of the changes, see here.

Conclusion
As always, this is merely a sample of the many changes this cycle. For a full list of all the July changes, feel free to take a look at our list of July milestones. Also, keep an eye out for the August Cycle. Or, if you are feeling a bit brave and a bit lucky, just start downloading.


XBMC 12.0 Alpha 3 - June Cycle (updated)

July 12th, 2012
As mentioned previously, we have now moved into a monthly development cycle, in which we merge new features at the beginning of the month and then perform bug fixes through the rest of the month. This means, at the end of every month, developers, bug-reporters, and those willing to deal with potentially highly unstable builds can try a snapshot from the current development cycle, and the organization, in turn, will have a more stable and predictable development process. For those of you who would prefer a stable version of XBMC, we will always recommend the most recent stable release (XBMC 11.0), but for the brave, you are welcome to try the end of the month build. To give an idea of just how unstable/alpha these builds can be, there will almost certainly be months in which some platforms won’t actually have usable builds. As always, we recommend you backup your userdata folder before upgrading.

With that said, let’s review some of the more notable changes in the June Changelog.

Airplay Updates
Two major updates have occurred on the Airplay side. First, AirTunes have finally been implemented on the Windows side. This means you can send both music and video from your iOS and iTunes devices to XBMC for Windows.

Second, when sending AirPlay music to XBMC, XBMC can now read the metadata sent in the stream and display the music information (e.g. title, author, coverart, etc.) on the screen. Unfortunately, this is only possible when sending audio from iTunes. iOS devices use FairPlay encryption, which XBMC is not totally compatible with at this time.

GSOC Updates
The efforts of our GSOC students are beginning to come to fruition. Montellese has been working over time to make the XBMC library faster and smarter. This month he has managed to push two fixes/updates to the library. First, movie sets now sort in a manner that better fit the rest of the library. In the past, movie sets were simply listed at the front of the movie library, like folders in front of files. Now, they are sorted based on the category. For example, the average rating of the movies inside the set would determine where the set would reside in a “sort by rating.”

A second new GSOC feature by Montellese should drastically speed up movie listings over JSON-RPC, which will greatly benefit mobile remote users and anyone else accessing the library from non-local devices. In the past, every call to XBMC’s movie library required spitting out every item in that library, even if the remote device was only looking for a few items. Now, a device can just pull those items it needs at any given point, for a massive time saving. Read more…
Conclusion
That covers some of the more notable and easily visible changes in this cycle. For a full list of all the June changes, feel free to take a look at our list of June milestones. Also, keep an eye out for the July Cycle. Or, if you are feeling a bit brave and a bit lucky, just start downloading here for Windows (OSX should be available within 24 hours)! Look here for Apple TV and iOS installation instructions.. Given the additional complexities of distribution, builds for Linux are not yet available at XBMC.org.

Also, as you no doubt may notice, there are fewer big features this month as more man hours are spent continuing to improve the features already recently added to XBMC (e.g. AudioEngine) and performing work to get XBMC ready on all platforms. As such, it is likely that we may begin intentionally winding down adding on additional new features in an attempt to get Frodo out sooner than later. When a roadmap has been established, we will, of course, update everyone


XBMC 12.0 Alpha 2 - May Cycle (updated)

As mentioned previously, we have now moved into a monthly development cycle, in which we merge new features at the beginning of the month and then perform bug fixes through the rest of the month. This means, at the end of every month, developers, bug-reporters, and those willing to deal with potentially highly unstable builds can try a snapshot from the current development cycle, and the organization, in turn, will have a more stable and predictable development process. For those of you who would prefer a stable version of XBMC, we will always recommend the most recent stable release (XBMC 11.0), but for the brave, you are welcome to try the end of the month build. To give an idea of just how unstable/alpha these builds can be, there will almost certainly be months in which some platforms won’t actually have usable builds. As always, we recommend you backup your userdata folder before upgrading.

With that said, let’s review some of the more notable changes in the May Changelog.

AudioEngine
As many of you no doubt already know by now, the really big code update this cycle was the inclusion of AudioEngine, led by gnif, into XBMC proper. For more information on this massive code shift, visit this post or check the wiki.

Hi10P
On an only slightly less frequently requested note, anime fans will be happy to learn that elupus has incorporated Hi10P playback into XBMC. A massive caveat to this development is that, in order to play back 1080p 10bit video, you are going to need an incredibly powerful machine with a very fast CPU (we’re talking desktop grade hardware). Users are reporting that 720p video appears to be at least workable on your lower level CPUs, but any expectations for silky smooth playback on something like the NVIDIA ION platform will almost certainly be met with disappointment. With that said, if you are currently running a fairly powerful machine, XBMC is finally ready to play your anime.

BR & DVD
In the steady march toward full unecrypted Bluray playback, elupus has also incorporated a virtual directory for Bluray files. While XBMC is still only able to display and navigate native HDMV Bluray menus (and not the common BD-J menus), users will be able to view a list of video files that display the video duration in the folder and select whichever video he or she would like to watch.

For users who typically watch DVDs recorded in a non-native default language, developer Montellese has subtly altered the way XBMC picks the appropriate audio language from among multiple options. Rather than simply picking the audio that has been flagged as “default,” XBMC will attempt to match the language of the XBMC installation with the audio language. So if you are running XBMC in German, and you attempt to watch a movie that typically would default in English, but happens to have a German track, XBMC will attempt to recognize and then select that track for you.

In addition, after selecting the appropriate language, XBMC will now make its audio selection based on the “best” track, rather than the first track listed. So in the past, there may have been 3 German language tracks listed in the following order: DTS-HD, MP3, and Dolby Digital. If XBMC was unable to play the DTS-HD track, it would default down to the next track and pick MP3. Now it will pick the next best track, and default to Dolby Digital.

Image Caching Improvements
One major area targeted for improvement for Frodo is the XBMC library. In particular, we are focused on making the library faster and smarter. The first step in this process, led by Jonathan Marshall, is a dramatic improvement in the way the library handles images. In the past, images would be cached in a local file and XBMC would have no knowledge of where that local file came from or what it was for. Now, XBMC will log where an art file comes from and where it is cached. In addition, XBMC will log what kind of file it is, whether it is a poster, a banner, clearart, or whatever. This means, as this framework is extended, skinners will be able to use locally cached art in numerous different views, regardless of whether the art type is banner, thumb, or other. Users will be able to change the art, simply by placing a new art file in the folder where the media is located and letting XBMC automatically note that the file has changed. And MySQL users will no longer have to worry about pathsubstitutions, as each client will maintain its own thumbnail cache that gets registered in the bigger database.

This means XBMC needs to recache all your lovely art, which will be done as you browse each item in your library. You’ll notice the first time you browse a listing the art will take a bit longer than usual to come in, but once recached, everything will be nice and snappy again. At the moment, only the smart links to your various image files are part of the May Cycle; however, as XBMC starts to take advantage of these improvements, libraries and skins should experience dramatic improvements in the months ahead.

Confluence Updates
In the shift from Dharma to Eden, Jezz_X was tasked with making media more easily accessible from the home screen with Confluence. Now, as more devices like the Raspberry Pi become available, the goal is to make the default skin Confluence as streamlined and efficient as possible, while continuing to make the media quickly accessible. To that end, you’ll note a number of changes this cycle. First of all, throughout XBMC, users will be greeted with a single, uniform, clean background image that may be altered at the user’s preference (Note: the code to change the background image is not available in this snapshot, so keep an eye out for nightlies and the June cycle). The default font has been switched to Android’s Roboto font. Weather forecasts as well as the home screen “recently added” lists have been bumped up to 10 scrollable items, and the Music category has gotten “recently added” albums. Finally, a “global search” bar has been added to the home screen so that those who have a lot of media can go directly to whatever they are looking for. (At the time of this writing, however, the global search bar has been know to cause some issues, at least on the Windows side, so be careful when trying it out.) Update: At the time of this writing, in order to use global search, users must install it as an addon in Addons->Program Addons.

Our first second 64bit platform
On the platform side, Davilla has drastically updated the build process for OSX. As of this cycle, XBMC for PPC is no longer available. On the upside however, XBMC is now a 64bit program in OSX and users may feel a measurable performance increase. Given how long XBMC4Xbox has lasted, PPC holdouts should probably not fear too much about this shift, as, if demand continues to exist, I have no doubt that a builder somewhere will continue to build XBMC for PPC. Note: while this transition has occurred in code, the automated alpha build available below is still only 32bit. Keep an eye out next month and in nightlies for the first build by our buildbot in 64bit. Update: It appears that 64bit Linux users have actually been enjoying 64bit XBMC since 2008, thereby making OSX our second 64bit platform. Apologies for the earlier misstatement.

Conclusion
That covers some of the more notable and easily visible changes in this cycle. For a full list of all the May changes, feel free to take a look at our list of May milestones. Also, keep an eye out for the June Cycle. Or, if you are feeling a bit brave and a bit lucky, just start downloading now! At the moment, builds available are on the Windows and OSX platforms. Given the additional complexities of distribution, builds for iOS and Linux are not yet available.


XBMC 12.0 Alpha
With that said, let’s review some of the more notable changes in the April Changelog.

First on the list is a major reshuffle of XBMC settings. In the past, many of the controls for allowing XBMC to interact with your network were found on the Network page. Because the Network group was primarily being used for interacting with various external services, the Network page has been entirely replaced with a Services page. The “Internet Access” setting, which was the only other purpose of the Network page, has been moved to the System page.


XBMC has quite a lot of services to deal with these days!
Next, extending XBMC’s default ability to scrape sets, we’ve now added a new “Sets” submenu item.



For all you iOS users out there, we have an even more exciting announcement. Those of you with iPads, recent iPod Touches, and recent iPhones that are running XBMC will now be able to switch your screen from the local screen to your TV using one of the available TV Out cords provided by Apple. Then, you can use your local screen as a remote control. Or, to put it more succinctly, mirroring for XBMC is now enabled. For a video on how this works, see below. (Note: as already mentioned, the lack of an iOS build for April means this feature will not actually be available until iOS nightly builds start back up again. Keep an eye on our social network pages, as those will likely be the first places with news on the builds.)



On the library front, in addition to Names, Year, Runtime, and many others, a new Date Added sort field has been enabled. This field works slightly differently than the old “Recently Added” sorting. Rather than sorting the files by how recently they’ve been added to XBMC, the files are now sorted by when they were added to your local computer or server. This way, when refreshing an old show, that show won’t suddenly take up all the spaces in your Recently Added field. Instead, Recently Added really will only show items that you have recently added to your collection.

Finally, Addon, Remote Control, and Skin Developers will be happy to hear that yet more json-rpc controls and websocket support have been added, along with PictureInfo tags.

https://github.com/xbmc/xbmc/issues?milestone=1&page=1&state=closed


XBMC 11.0 - Eden
March 24th, 2012natethomas7 comments
It’s been over a year in the works and today we are excited to announce that XBMC 11.0 is finally ready and available for download. You can find XBMC 11.0 here.

XBMC 11.0 Milestones include Addon Rollbacks, vast improvements in Confluence (the default skin), massive speed increases via features like Dirty-region rendering and the new JPEG decoder, a simpler, better library, movie set scraping, additional protocol handling, better networking support, better handling of unencrypted BluRay content and structures, adjustable display refresh rate in OSX (to match the already available feature in Windows and Linux), AirPlay support, an upgraded weather service with geoip lookup, and much, much more. Check out the highlights in the summarized changelog.

The new Confluence
In addition to our many software improvements, we’ve increased our reach in the realm of hardware support since Dharma was released. Eden marks the first in-sync stable release for the Apple TV2, iPad, and other iOS devices. We’ve vastly improved the method by which we handle input, including heavily upgrading JSON-RPC support, making remote control support much, MUCH simpler in Windows, and enabling unique methods of device communication with hardware. And now even AMD devices are supported for GPU video decoding in Linux to some extent, thanks to the inclusion of VAAPI.

Beyond XBMC 11 for Windows, Linux, OSX, and iOS, we are also happy to announce XBMCbuntu Final.

XBMCbuntu is very similar to past versions of XBMC Live. By default, the user boots directly into XBMC, and if he/she chooses, he or she will never see the underlying OS. However, unlike Live, XBMCbuntu is now built upon a full LXDE desktop environment, which has a web browser (Chromium) with a fully updated (and updatable) version of Flash built-in and a GUI package manager ready to install and update all of the normal Ubuntu programs a typical Linux user might use. The user may now toggle between XBMC, which auto-starts, and a normal desktop if he or she chooses. And, perhaps most exciting for many users, XBMC will now be upgradeable, both from command line and from the GUI package manager, without fear of crashing the XBMC experience.

Naturally, those users who do not want to see the desktop will never need to. When you boot your computer, you will be booted directly into the XBMC homescreen, just as you are right now. The only clear difference is the new power underneath the hood. Those users who have already installed the Beta version of XBMCbuntu can upgrade to final using the apt-get upgrade commands.

There are truly an incredible number of updates and improvements between Dharma and Eden. But don’t take our word for it. Download XBMC 11.0 Eden now.

Summarized changelog

Addons Framework, API, and Manager

Added ability for all addons to provide their own web interface (and handling of multiple web interfaces)
Added support for addons to save their setting values to their own settings.xml file before quitting
Added support for multi-file selections in the (python) file browser dialog
Extended Addons API to support adding extension points for Service Addons (xbmc.service)
Added support for Addon Rollbacks, enabling users to choose previously installed addons over more recent revisions
Added the ability to search Addons in the Addons-Manager

GUI Engine

Improve XBMC's GUI Engine / Skinning Framework making it even more flexible and powerful
Added option for auto login of a specific selected user profile (good for kiosk mode)
Added commands for xbmc.Player().getAvailableAudioStreams() and xbmc.Player().setAudioStream()
Added support to identify DTS-HD (DTS-HD MA and DTS-HD HRA) profiles in audio stream list
Add ability for skinners to show buffering progress for streamed/cached files (similar to YouTube)
Improved mouse support, add better control for dragging of seek / slide / scroll bars, and click handling
Improve touch interface API and gesture support for XBMC's GUI Engine for all platforms
Added Dirty Region support to reduce CPU usage
Added a custom JPEG decoder, at least 2x faster than the previous implementation (cximage)

Playback:

Added UDF 2.5 filesystem reading support to XBMC's VFS (Virtual File System)
Added support for direct playback of ISO image files for Blu-ray Disc as well as video library integration
Added an option for vertical shift of video image with slider setting
Added support for color and font styles tag in MPL2 (MicroDVD) subtitles
Added support for SSA/ASS subtitle tags; italics, bold, and color for SubRip (.srt) subtitles
Added support for MP4 embedded subtitles
Added support delay tag in vobsub subtitles
Gave external subtitles preference over internal subtitles
Added support for a new extended version of MPlayer's EDL (Edit Decision List) format
Added PlayerControl built in function to allow jumping to a percentage offset from a key mapping
Added support for Slingbox
Upgrade FFmpeg (libavformat and libavcodec) audio/video codec and demux library
Improved Blu-ray Disc and harddrive playback support of unencrypted bdmv and mpls files without menus
Removed subtitle caching (as it was only needed on Xbox because of the severe memory restrictions)
Removed all dependencies of libmms libraries from XBMC's code in favour of FFmpeg native MMS support
Remove all dependencies of liba52, libdts, and faac libraries from XBMC's code in favour of FFmpeg native
Added support for NFS virtual file server (vfs) (all platforms)
Added support for AFP (vfs) (all platforms aside from Windows)
Added Airplay support for Videos/Pictures (all platforms)
Added Airplay support for Music (all platforms aside from Windows)
Added Audio/L16 support for better DLNA UPnP client compliance
Improved UPnP Renderer
Added a slider for volume amplification and dynamic range compression during video playback
Added an option to pause video playback during refreshrate changes
Extended PathSubstitution from playlists to all files for users of shared MySQL Databases
Added the ability to adjust the display's refresh rate to match the video's frame rate in OSX (Feature already available in Windows and Linux)
Improvements made to the adjust refresh rate feature to pick the "best" rate, rather than the closest multiple
Added DXVA Deinterlacing support

Library:

Combined Files and Library mode for videos
Add asynchronous threaded background loading of metadata to XBMC's VFS (Virtual File System)
Added support for cleaning the music library via CleanLibrary(music) command
Added a "Play from here" context menu button for TV Shows Episodes in the video library
Added the option to specify the default select (Play, Resume, Show information, Choose) action on videos
Changed "Set Content" to "Edit Content Settings" after being set
Added disc stub support for cataloging DVDs, BluRays, etc.
Added support for scraping Movie Collections, along with the ability to toggle collections on and off

Scrapers:

Improve TheMovieDB.org movie scraper by adding themoviedb.org posters scraping
Added movie set scraping'
Improve TheTVDB.com (Multi-Lingual) TV Shows and Episode scraper
Improve Freebase (English) music scraper

Skins:

Confluence: Home screen switched to horizontal layout
Confluence: Greatly simplified the way FanArt works throughout the skin and the settings for it
Confluence: Added ability for users to easily add / remove Add-ons as items on the home screen menu
Confluence: Added codec flagging images for DTS-HD Master Audio and DTS-HD High Resolution Audio

Other:

Added ability to handle and allow access to multiple web interfaces at once
Added option setting to play videos within picture slideshows
Added dimming setting to the built-in picture slideshow screensaver
Added support for sorting depending on current locale
Added advancedsettings.xml option to disable the display of startup splash image (enabled by default)
Added support for batch requests to the JSON-RPC API
Added support for requests by notification to the JSON-RPC API
Make JSON-RPC API compliant with JSON-RPC 2.0 specification ( details)
Cleanup and improve JSON-RPC API
Added advancedsettings.xml option to configure the TCP port used by JSON-RPC (default is 9090)
Improve the features of the default web interface
Removed Weather from XBMC core and switched to Weather Underground as the default weather provider addon
Added weather lookup by IP

Linux Specific:

Add support for Texas Instruments OMAP4 (OMAP4430 and OMAP4440 with video decoding on IVA 3)
Added dynamic runtime detection of CPU features (MMX, SSE, 3DNow, etc.) implementation for Linux
Added proper timezone support for systems based on Slackware Linux
Added altname (alternative name) support to LIRC mapping for linux-input-layer devices
Added lircmap for Conexant's CX23885 IR (infrared) recievers
Added lircmap to switch between subtitles with iMON Pad remote control
Improved ARM processor architecture support for embedded devices and embedded system platforms
Improved OpenGL ES and EGL support for embedded devices and embedded system platforms
Improved OpenMAX Video Decoding Acceleration support
Provide JSON-RPC server over Bluetooth

iOS Specific:

Ported XBMC to iOS 4.x (adding "XBMC for iOS" to XBMC's existing list of supported operating-systems)
Added support for Apple A4 (ARM) iDevices, inc. Apple TV 2G, iPhone 4, iPod Touch 4G, the iPad (effectively all jailbroken iOS products)
Added hardware accelerated video decoding support for H.264 decode on iOS via Apple's VideoToolBox API
Added support for OpenGL ES hardware accelerated rendering of XBMC's graphical user interface on iOS
Added retina support
Added initial iOS Touch / Gesture / Inertial Scrolling support for XBMC interface on iPhone 4, iPod Touch 4G, and the iPad
Added a APT repository for Apple TV, and Cydia with packages for iPhone 4, iPod Touch 4G, and iPad

Mac OS X Specific:

Added dynamic runtime detection of CPU features (MMX, SSE, 3DNow, etc.) implementation for Mac OS X
Improve Apple VDADecoder Video Acceleration support (requires Snow Leopard and NVIDIA 9400 or later)
Improve XBMC's build system to make compiling XBMC much easier

Windows Specific:

Added support for NV12, UVYV, UYVY, and YUV2 rendering (software and ps)
Added dynamic runtime detection of CPU features (MMX, SSE, 3DNow, etc.) implementation for Windows
Added DXVA video rendering option
Improve XBMC's build system to make compiling XBMC much easier


XBMC 11 Eden: RC2
March 2nd, 2012natethomas76 comments
We are pleased to announce that the video sync bug introduced has been resolved and Release Candidate 2 released in record time.

For those of you who skipped RC1, a review of major changes since Beta 3 may be found in this post. Additionally, you are welcome, as always, to review our coding changes on Github.

Meanwhile, those of you excited to get to downloading, as always, visit our Download page at any time.

Lastly, we’re still a few days away from being ready for the next round of XBMCbuntu, but, as always, we’ll update you as soon as possible. Thanks for bearing with us! With your reports, we’re getting closer every day!


XBMC 11 Eden: RC1
February 27th, 2012natethomas10 comments

XBMC 11 Eden: RC1, ready for take off.
Today we are excited to announce Eden Release Candidate 1. It has been a productive few weeks since Beta 3, as we’ve ironed out numerous minor (and one or two major) bugs.

In particular, we’ve:

Given preference to external subtitles over internal subtitles
Updated a number of XBMC translations for final release
Resolved a number of outstanding Airplay issues
Allowed specified movie sets to be sorted by title, rather than year, without changing the default sort order on other sets.
We’ve also added the useful feature of IP weather look up. Now, on a clean install of XBMC, users will no longer need to manually enter their weather location. Instead, XBMC will simply check the IP location of your box and auto-set the weather.

For a complete rundown on changes made since February 9th, feel free to visit here.

Now you all know what to do. Head on over to our download page, pick your favorite version of XBMC, and let us know how the experience goes in the comments.

One additional note: The new release of XBMCbuntu is currently delayed due to packaging issues. We will update this post with new info when it is ready.


XBMC 11.0: Eden Beta 3 available now
February 9th, 2012natethomas1 comment

As we continue moving toward the release of Eden, more and more fixes are slotting into place. With Beta 3, we’ve fixed playlist issues, altered some misbehaving Library buttons, provided a little more control over the way movie sets are scraped, and cleaned up numerous other small bugs.

On top of the many bug fixes though, we are pleased to officially announce the first beta of XBMCbuntu. With this beta release, we have chosen to slightly shift the focus of the pre-built XBMC Live install. In the past, XBMC Live was optimized for a pure set-top box experience. In the switch to XBMCbuntu, we are pushing to a more traditional ‘buntu approach that emphasizes first trying and then ultimately installing XBMC onto the local machine.

There are many benefits to this approach. In particular, XBMC is now built upon a full LXDE desktop environment, which has a web browser (Chromium) with a fully updated (and updatable) version of Flash built-in and a GUI package manager ready to install and update all of the normal Ubuntu programs a typical Linux user might use. The user may now toggle between XBMC, which auto-starts, and a normal desktop if he or she chooses. And, perhaps most exciting for many users, XBMC will now be upgradeable, both from command line and from the GUI package manager, without fear of crashing the XBMC experience.

Naturally, those users who do not want to see the desktop will never need to. When you boot your computer, you will be booted directly into the XBMC homescreen, just as you are right now. The only clear difference is the new power underneath the hood.

For those users experienced in installing XBMC Live, be prepared for a newer, easier graphical installer. Your downloadable Disc Image may be found here. The installer still needs a bit of polish, most notably the slideshow panels, but we will be sure to brush up the cosmetics in time for final release.

And for those users of Eden Beta1 and Beta2, as always, your downloads may be found here. Once again, remember this is Beta software, and bugs are likely to appear. Feel free to let us know how your experience is going in the comments below.

http://trac.xbmc.org/timeline
https://github.com/xbmc/xbmc/commits/Eden


XBMC 11.0: Eden Beta 2 available now
January 22nd, 2012natethomas5 comments

It’s been a productive few weeks in the race to release Eden. Since Beta 1, unencrypted bluray, dvd player, startup problems in OSX, airplay, subtitle issues, unofficial addon repository installations, and the frustrating TMDB scraper problems that have made it difficult for everyone to scrape new movies have all seen fixes. In addition, a great deal of progress has been made in the new XBMCBuntu build, which should be ready for the next preview release. Finally, all Beta 1 users are encouraged to update immediately to fix a scraper error that causes XBMC to crash.

The same warnings from beta1 still apply. Eden is quite stable already, but don’t forget that it is in beta. Builds for all platforms except XBMCBuntu are uploaded and ready to go. Download the latest in mediacenter goodness right here.

Translators and addon developers, please be sure to send your final pull requests for translations for XBMC and Addons for Eden.


XBMC 11.0 Eden: Beta available now
December 24th, 2011

It took a bit longer than expected due to a few bumps in the road, but we are excited to present the first preview release of (what we consider to be) the best version of the best home theater software out there.

Ladies and Gentlemen, XBMC 11.0 Eden: Beta 1 is available to download.

The sheer number of new features, platforms, and improvements to nearly every facet of the XBMC experience found within Eden are nearly too numerous to count.

Milestones include Addon Rollbacks, vast improvements in Confluence (the default skin), massive speed increases via features like Dirty-region rendering and the new JPEG decoder, a simpler, better library, additional protocol handling, better networking support, better handling of unencrypted BluRay content and structures, adjustable display refresh rate in OSX (to match the already available feature in Windows and Linux), AirPlay support, an upgraded weather service, and much more. Check out the highlights in the summarized changelog.

In addition to our many software improvements, we’ve increased our reach in the realm of hardware support since Dharma was released. Eden marks the first in-sync stable release for the Apple TV2, iPad, and other iOS devices. We’ve vastly improved the method by which we handle input, including heavily upgrading JSON-RPC support, making remote control support much, MUCH simpler in Windows, and enabling unique methods of device communication with hardware like the HDMI-CEC Adapter. And now even AMD devices are supported for GPU video decoding in Linux to some extent, thanks to the inclusion of VAAPI.

We are also in the process of drastically altering XBMC Live to make it more like a full “*Buntu” version of XBMC with massive changes to the boot and install process. That alteration is not quite ready for prime time (and, thus, is not available at this time), but our devs are working on it round the clock. Keep an eye out for a more in-depth article on this in the next week or so. The XBMC Linux PPA is also not immediately available, but check back a few days after Christmas. It should be online at that time.

Because this is Beta software, you can likely expect minor issues over the course of the next few weeks. For example, you may discover issues with playing movie trailers that may require a manual install of the Youtube addon. If, after asking in the forum and updating to the most recently available Beta, your issue is not solved, feel free to follow the above link to the Trac service and create a ticket with the issue. As always, when troubleshooting, providing a debug log will be essential to resolving issues.

And with that, we invite users one and all to backup your userdata folder (which is always a good idea)(also, iOS users, you should follow this link for info on your slightly different backup process), and get to downloading!

Addons Framework, API, and Manager

Added ability for all addons to provide their own web interface (and handling of multiple web interfaces)
Added support for addons to save their setting values to their own settings.xml file before quitting
Added support for multi-file selections in the (python) file browser dialog
Extended Addons API to support adding extension points for Service Addons (xbmc.service)
Added support for Addon Rollbacks, enabling users to choose previously installed addons over more recent revisions
Added the ability to search Addons in the Addons-Manager

GUI Engine

Improve XBMC's GUI Engine / Skinning Framework making it even more flexible and powerful
Added option for auto login of a specific selected user profile (good for kiosk mode)
Added commands for xbmc.Player().getAvailableAudioStreams() and xbmc.Player().setAudioStream()
Added support to identify DTS-HD (DTS-HD MA and DTS-HD HRA) profiles in audio stream list
Add ability for skinners to show buffering progress for streamed/cached files (similar to YouTube)
Improved mouse support, add better control for dragging of seek / slide / scroll bars, and click handling
Improve touch interface API and gesture support for XBMC's GUI Engine for all platforms
Added Dirty Region support to reduce CPU usage
Added a custom JPEG decoder, at least 2x faster than the previous implementation (cximage)

Playback:

Added UDF 2.5 filesystem reading support to XBMC's VFS (Virtual File System)
Added support for direct playback of ISO image files for Blu-ray Disc as well as video library integration
Added an option for vertical shift of video image with slider setting
Added support for color and font styles tag in MPL2 (MicroDVD) subtitles
Added support for SSA/ASS subtitle tags; italics, bold, and color for SubRip (.srt) subtitles
Added support for MP4 embedded subtitles
Added support delay tag in vobsub subtitles
Added support for a new extended version of MPlayer's EDL (Edit Decision List) format
Added PlayerControl built in function to allow jumping to a percentage offset from a key mapping
Added support for Slingbox
Upgrade FFmpeg (libavformat and libavcodec) audio/video codec and demux library
Improved Blu-ray Disc and harddrive playback support of unencrypted bdmv and mpls files without menus
Removed subtitle caching (as it was only needed on Xbox because of the severe memory restrictions)
Removed all dependencies of libmms libraries from XBMC's code in favour of FFmpeg native MMS support
Remove all dependencies of liba52, libdts, and faac libraries from XBMC's code in favour of FFmpeg native
Added support for NFS virtual file server (vfs) (all platforms)
Added support for AFP (vfs) (all platforms aside from Windows)
Added Airplay support for Videos/Pictures (all platforms)
Added Airplay support for Music (all platforms aside from Windows)
Improved UPnP Renderer
Added a slider for volume amplification and dynamic range compression during video playback
Added an option to pause video playback during refreshrate changes
Extended PathSubstitution from playlists to all files for users of shared MySQL Databases
Added the ability to adjust the display's refresh rate to match the video's frame rate in OSX (Feature already available in Windows and Linux)
Improvements made to the adjust refresh rate feature to pick the "best" rate, rather than the closest multiple
Added DXVA Deinterlacing support

Library:

Combined Files and Library mode for videos
Add asynchronous threaded background loading of metadata to XBMC's VFS (Virtual File System)
Added support for cleaning the music library via CleanLibrary(music) command
Added a "Play from here" context menu button for TV Shows Episodes in the video library
Added the option to specify the default select (Play, Resume, Show information, Choose) action on videos
Changed "Set Content" to "Edit Content Settings" after being set
Added disc stub support for cataloging DVDs, BluRays, etc.

Scrapers:

Improve TheMovieDB.org movie scraper by adding themoviedb.org posters scraping
Improve TheTVDB.com (Multi-Lingual) TV Shows and Episode scraper
Improve Freebase (English) music scraper

Skins:

Confluence: Home screen switched to horizontal layout
Confluence: Greatly simplified the way FanArt works throughout the skin and the settings for it
Confluence: Added ability for users to easily add / remove Add-ons as items on the home screen menu
Confluence: Added codec flagging images for DTS-HD Master Audio and DTS-HD High Resolution Audio

Other:

Added ability to handle and allow access to multiple web interfaces at once
Added option setting to play videos within picture slideshows
Added dimming setting to the built-in picture slideshow screensaver
Added support for sorting depending on current locale
Added advancedsettings.xml option to disable the display of startup splash image (enabled by default)
Added support for batch requests to the JSON-RPC API
Added support for requests by notification to the JSON-RPC API
Make JSON-RPC API compliant with JSON-RPC 2.0 specification ( details)
Cleanup and improve JSON-RPC API
Added advancedsettings.xml option to configure the TCP port used by JSON-RPC (default is 9090)
Improve the features of the default web interface
Removed Weather from XBMC core and switched to Weather Underground as the default weather provider addon

Linux Specific:

Add support for Texas Instruments OMAP4 (OMAP4430 and OMAP4440 with video decoding on IVA 3)
Added dynamic runtime detection of CPU features (MMX, SSE, 3DNow, etc.) implementation for Linux
Added proper timezone support for systems based on Slackware Linux
Added altname (alternative name) support to LIRC mapping for linux-input-layer devices
Added lircmap for Conexant's CX23885 IR (infrared) recievers
Added lircmap to switch between subtitles with iMON Pad remote control
Improved ARM processor architecture support for embedded devices and embedded system platforms
Improved OpenGL ES and EGL support for embedded devices and embedded system platforms
Improved OpenMAX Video Decoding Acceleration support
Provide JSON-RPC server over Bluetooth

iOS Specific:

Ported XBMC to iOS 4.x (adding "XBMC for iOS" to XBMC's existing list of supported operating-systems)
Added support for Apple A4 (ARM) iDevices, inc. Apple TV 2G, iPhone 4, iPod Touch 4G, and the iPad
Added hardware accelerated video decoding support for H.264 decode on iOS via Apple's VideoToolBox API
Added support for OpenGL ES hardware accelerated rendering of XBMC's graphical user interface on iOS
Added initial iOS Touch / Gesture / Inertial Scrolling support for XBMC interface on iPhone 4, iPod Touch 4G, and the iPad
Added a APT repository for Apple TV, and Cydia with packages for iPhone 4, iPod Touch 4G, and iPad

Mac OS X Specific:

Added dynamic runtime detection of CPU features (MMX, SSE, 3DNow, etc.) implementation for Mac OS X
Improve Apple VDADecoder Video Acceleration support (requires Snow Leopard and NVIDIA 9400 or later)
Improve XBMC's build system to make compiling XBMC much easier

Windows Specific:

Added support for NV12, UVYV, UYVY, and YUV2 rendering (software and ps)
Added dynamic runtime detection of CPU features (MMX, SSE, 3DNow, etc.) implementation for Windows
Added DXVA video rendering option
Improve XBMC's build system to make compiling XBMC much easier


Bug-fix Release: 10.1
March 10th, 2011

While we are moving quickly to get new features into 11.0, the time has come for a maintenance release for Dharma. We recommend that all users update to 10.1 as soon as possible to increase stability.

The main focus of this release is to address a bug that could cause XBMC to freeze when updating a skin. We have held back skin updates from the main repository because of this, but now that it is fixed, they will begin rolling out in a few weeks.

This is intended as a bug-fix release only, no new features have been introduced. Notable fixes include:

* If an in-use skin was updated in Windows, XBMC would freeze
* Some RTMP streams in Windows did not play
* Included add-ons have been updated
* The correct referrer is now used for downloading add-ons, improving dependency statistics
* Crashes during playback on ATI hardware in some circumstances have been fixed
* Hardware decoding improvements for OSX
* Various small fixes

In addition, XBMC Live has been updated with the most recent packages, one of which includes a fix for the annoying SMB+Windows Live Essentials bug.


XBMC 10.0
December 18th, 2010

It’s been a LONG time coming. Too long. But here it is.

XBMC 10.0 “Dharma” is ready for consumption. Those who have been following development know that add-ons are the main focus of this release. In the past, in order to find a new skin, you would have to dig through the forums, find a link, and hope it worked. Ditto for plugins, scrapers, etc.

Those days are over. All of these things are now available within XBMC, no need to put down the remote to find new content or change the look of your HTPC. Just head to the “add-ons” section in the system menu. At the time of this writing, there are 11 different skins available, all with distinct looks and personalities. But we didn’t stop there. Want to watch your favorite youtube videos? Listen to some web radio or podcasts? Install a web interface to control your living-room experience, or even one to manage your media? It’s all available in the new add-ons system. Even before the final release, we have seen an average of 50,000 add-on downloads per day. It’s time for you to see what many others have discovered! And remember, the best part is that the add-ons are very much alive. New ones are being added every day, and current ones are continuously updated.


Addons Manager

* Added unified Addon framework that make it easy to distribute addons to XBMC (based on C-Pluff)
* Addon Browser GUI that will allow for an easy way to find, install, and manage third-party addons
* Added support for update notifications and options for manual or automatic updates of addons
* Added Team XBMC's official Addons Repository for open source addons as the default Addon Repo
* Added GUI option to install additional third-party Addons Repos from ZIP files (with addon.xml)
* Added GUI option to install third-party addons from ZIP files without it being in an Addon Repo
* Added support for scrapers (Web Scraper Metadata Aggregators) to the Addons API
* Added support for skins extension point to the Addons API
* Added support for visualizations extension point to the Addons API
* Added support for screensavers extension point to the Addons API
* Added support for python based plugins extension point to the Addons API
* Added support for python based scripts extension point to the Addons API
* Added support for web interfaces extension point to the Addons API
* Added new default web interface as an addon to remote control XBMC via any web browser
* Removed builtin SHOUTcast.com directory support and moved it to the official addons repo
* Removed builtin visualizations and moved them to the official addons repo
* Removed builtin screensavers and moved them to the official addons repo
* Removed all Adult ('XXX' classified) scrapers into a new third-party managed addons repository

GUI Engine:

* Improved XBMC's GUI Engine / Skinning Framework making it even more flexible and powerful
* Added option to choose "default select action" of the showing info screen for videos
* Added FanArt support for Addons
* Added initial gesture support to XBMC's GUI Engine (adding touch interface API support to guilib)
* Added initial support for Windows Touch API (Windows 7 touch features and functions)
* Added ability for Karaoke player to optionally show the next song that will be played
* Added video information flagging for trailers
* Improved mouse support, added better exclusive control support for dragging of sliders/scroll bars
* Improved mouse click handling and added the possibility of long verses short clicks detection
* Updated translations for most languages (thanks to all community members who contributed!)
* Renamed "Plugins" in the Addons UI to "Media Sources" as that is what they are now
* Removed AAC, MP1, MP2, and MP3 passthrough options settings from the GUI
* Removed all Xbox only strings from the language files since the Xbox platform is no longer supported

Playback:

* Added Broadcom Crystal HD PCIe/Mini-PCIe hardware accelerated video decoders support
* Added native support for unencrypted Blu-ray Disc playback without menus (via libbluray)
* Added Blu-ray Disc detection for external players (map external player in playercorefactory.xml)
* Added support for using libbluray to play bdmv files (index.bdmv or *.mpls) from local folders
* Added raw bitstream pass-through support for MP1, MP2, MP3, and AAC encoded audio tracks
* Added real-time ATSC A/52 encoder for on-the-fly Dolby Digital 5.1 (AC-3) transcoded output
* Added support for 5.1 Multi-Channel Analog Output (discrete 6-channel PCM output)
* Added post-processing support and options for videos in standard definition resolutions
* Added High-Quality Lanczos Upscalers (Video Resamplers) as OpenGL GLSL Shaders
* Added support for embedded Blu-ray/AVCHD PGS subtitles in MKV (Matroska) video containers
* Added support to use MKV (Matroska) embedded descriptions for audio and subtitle tracks
* Added support for DEFAULT/FORCED Matroska flags for subtitles
* Added support for color text subtitles in MKV files
* Added support for unsorted subtitles (ass/ssa, srt, smi)
* Added support for multiple language SAMI subtitle
* Added initial WebDAV (HTTP) media source support to XBMC's VFS (Virtual File System)
* Added initial SFTP media source support to XBMC's VFS (Virtual File System)
* Added support for WebM via libvpx
* Added Zapstream support for Tuxbox (Dreambox/DBox2) client
* Added RTMPE/RTMPTE and improved RTMP/RTMPT/RTMPS support via librtmp from RTMPDump
* Added "Wide Zoom" video mode option, a combination zoom, cropping, and non-linear stretching
* Added "Stretch 14x9" video mode option, a combination of zoom, cropping, and linear stretching
* Added "Stretch 16x9" video mode option, a combination of zoom, cropping, and linear stretching
* Added support to extract lyrics from Lyrics3v2 (Lyrics3 2.00) ID3 tags when available in music files
* Added support to configured cache buffer size via advancedsettings.xml (rather than hardcoded)
* Upgraded FFmpeg that significantly improves the decoding of all widespread mainstream codecs
* Improved generalization of chapter support and SeekTime from the input stream interface
* Improved Dream Multimedia Dreambox Enigma2 bouquets support in the TuxBox Client
* Improved audio channel matrix mapping, audio channels downmixing, and upmixing support
* Improved DVD-Video navigation in using Next and Prev
* Improved timecode-based seeking in videos

Library:

* Added FanArt image cache height-value size option to advancedsettings.xml (defaults to 480)
* Added initial support for MySQL as abstracted database backend for video and music libraries
* Added improved portability of SQL statements used in the video and music libraries
* Added ability to sort TV Shows folders by the date of the last recorded episode
* Added support for Movie Sets (option to group movie collections into sets for customized sorting)
* Added support to allow scrapers to use a normal settings.xml
* Improved performance for SQL database queries ( expert help is always wanted in this area!)
* Improved video scanner engine
* Improved metadata scraper engine

Scrapers:

* Added hd-trailers.net movie trailers scraping to TheMovieDB.org and IMDb scrapers
* Added new Rotten Tomatoes (English) movie scraper
* Added new Freebase (English) music scraper
* Added new 1ting (Chinese) music scraper
* Added new 7176 (Chinese) movie scraper
* Added new getlib (Chinese) movie scraper
* Added new m1905 (Chinese) movie scraper
* Added new daum (Korean) TV Shows scraper
* Added new daum (Korean) music scraper
* Added new filmbasen (Norwegian) movie scraper
* Added new moviemeter (Dutch) movie scraper
* Added new videobuster (German) movie scraper
* Added new kino (German) movie scraper
* Improved ofdb (German) movie scraper by adding themoviedb.org posters scraping
* Improved TheTVDB (Multi-Lingual) TV Shows and Episode scraper
* Removed Discogs (English) music scraper due to them blocking XBMC
* Removed imdb-cn (Chinese) movie scraper due to website closed

Skins:

* Confluence: Addon Browser specific window and icon to get to it in the settings GUI
* Confluence: Added border to the Addon icons in media info view for a uniformed look
* Confluence: Added FanArt support for the Addon Browser
* Confluence: Added buttons in the OSD's for Lyrics and Subtitle Addons
* Confluence: Added browsing for subtitles in full screen video overlay
* Confluence: Added browsing for lyrics in full screen video overlay
* Confluence: Added "Recently Added" Movies and TV Shows script view in the home menu
* Confluence: Improved file and folder path name reading for media flagging
* Confluence: Removed script window completely (turns out you don't need one now)

Other:

* Added JSON-RPC and JSON API over HTTP and Sockets for bidirectional communication
* Added microhttpd Web Server (and removed the old GoAhead and Spyce code) for HTTP API
* Added HTTP authentication methods any, anysafe, digest, and ntlm (via cURL libcurl)
* Added SSH file transfer protocol (sftp) via libssh
* Added support for MD5 passwords in GUIEditControl
* Added function / setting to enable DXTn texture compression (DDS) to all cached non-skin images
* Added doxygen resources for generating source code documentation
* Added ability to turn off LCD/VFD backlight while screensaving to advancedsettings.xml
* Added builtin command for sending Wake-On-Lan (WOL) magic packets
* Added builtin command irsend infra-red send commands using LIRC for IR blaster (lirc.send)
* Added joystick deadzone and calibration support to advanced settings ( advancedsettings.xml)
* Added power abstraction framework with a way to send OnWake and OnSuspend events
* Improved XBMC's integrated DLNA / UPnP MediaServer and Client compatibility
* Improved last.fm and libre.fm passwords storage with MD5, requires user to input password again

Live Specific:

* Optimized XBMC Live for the first and next-generation NVIDIA ION / ION 2 (as reference platforms)
* Added Bootable Disk Wizard (BDW) addon to the Live CD that makes bootable flash disk easier for users
* Added Plymouth Theme with XBMC logo typeface to replace the old USplash Splash Screen on Boot
* Added support for GRUB 2 based images
* Improved support for Wake-on-USB from ACPI S3 Standby with Remote/Keyboard/Mouse
* Updated XBMC Live to to based on a stripped Ubuntu Desktop 10.04 (Lucid Lynx) Linux Distribution
* Updated NVIDIA and ATI proprietary binary graphics device drivers (restricted drivers)

Linux Specific:

* Optimized keymapping for navigation with MCE (Microsoft Windows Media Center) compatible remotes
* Added PPA (Personal Package Archives) packages for Ubuntu 10.04 and 10.10 (32-bit and 64-bit)
* Added support for ARM processor architecture (with TI OMAP3 and NVIDIA Tegra 2 as reference)
* Added initial support OpenGL ES 2.0 compliance in the Linux renderer for embedded devices via EGL
* Added Broadcom Crystal HD PCIe/Mini-PCIe Hardware Accelerated Video Decoder Support
* Added VAAPI (Video Acceleration API) support (requires VAAPI compatible hardware and drivers)
* Added OpenMAX Video Acceleration support (requires OpenMax IL compatible hardware, like Tegra2)
* Added NEON (ARM) Video Acceleration support (requires NEON compatible hardware, like OMAP3)
* Added initial implementation of the OnLowBattery signal in UPower
* Added lircmap for linux-input-layer devices to allow for joystick and gamepad keymaps
* Added lircmap for Alienware Alienware Dual Compatible Game Pad
* Added lircmap for the Xbox 360 (wireless) controller
* Added lircmap for Interact AxisPad
* Added lircmap for MCE (Microsoft Windows Media Center) remotes via SoundGraph iMON IR-receivers
* Added lircmap for Twinhan remotes
* Added lircmap for Antec's VERIS family RM200 / Antec Fusion Remote Control
* Improved VDPAU (NVIDIA) Hardware Video Acceleration and its upscaling/deinterlacing capabilities
* Improved AMD/Intel x86-64 64-bit (AMD64 / IA-64t CPU architectures) support

Windows Specific:

* Added support for most MCE (Microsoft Windows Media Center) compatible remotes out-of-the-box
* Added Broadcom Crystal HD PCIe/Mini-PCIe Hardware Accelerated Video Decoder Support
* Added initial native DXVA 2 support for H.264, VC-1, and WMV9 (Windows Vista and 7 only)
* Added support for WASAPI (Windows Audio Session API) for raw bitstream output
* Added High-Quality Bicubic and Lanczos Upscalers (Video Resamplers) as Direct3D HLSL
* Added Direct3D port of the OpenGL Spectrum 3D Audio Visualization for DirectX
* Added support for Visual Studio 2010 Express edition and Visual Studio 2010 non-Express edition
* Improved support for Microsoft's DirectX, Direct3D, and DirectSound APIs for Windows

Mac OS X Specific:

* Optimizated remote navigation and improved keymapping for both the old and the new Apple Remote
* Added Apple VDADecoder Video Accelleration support (requires Snow Leopard and NVIDIA 9400 or later)
* Added Broadcom Crystal HD PCIe/Mini-PCIe Hardware Accelerated Video Decoder Support
* Added analog audio downmix to user-selected format
* Added check for AC/Battery and Low Battery warning notifications (set to 10 percent)
* Improved the PowerPC (PPC CPU architecture) support for Mac OS X 10.4
* Removed PortAudio now that we only use Core Audio

Apple TV Specific:

* Added Broadcom Crystal HD PCIe/Mini-PCIe Hardware Accelerated Video Decoder Support
* Added support for Apple TV OS 3.0.2


XBMC 9.11: Camelot
December 24th, 2009 Team XBMC 3 comments

It’s been quite a while in the making (and maybe a bit late), but Camelot has arrived for Windows, OSX, Linux, and XBMC Live, and just in time for the holidays. Noteworthy changes include a revamped user interface via the new default skin “Confluence“, DirectX support by default for the Windows platform, a complete reorganization of the settings menus, automatic video information extraction, and smoother video playback. In addition, all scrapers have been updated, new remotes are supported out of the box, and codecs have been updated for more reliable playback. For a full changelog, see the end of this post.

GUI:

Improved XBMC GUI Skinning Framework making it even more flexible and powerful
Powerbutton follows “shutdown function” in settings/system/power saving
Updated translations for most languages (help is always wanted with translation)
Skinnable Weather Plugin API enabling third-party Weather Plugins (Python Scripts)
Edit button for RSS feeds in settings, (needs RssTicker script installed, see SCRIPTS section below)
New screensaver option to turn off the screen (using VESA DPMS)
Always On Top option to advancedsettings.xml when XBMC runs in Windowed Mode
Better support for multi-monitor setups
Settings have been re-organized and cleaned up to sync with new features

Playback:

High Definition, Surround Sound, and Subtitle Flagging and Filtering in Video Library
Added support for SingStar and UltraStar Karaoke Lyrics Format
Updated FFmpeg (libavformat and libavcodec) audio/video codec and demux library
Speed up RAW image loading and handle more file extensions
Implemented better WAV/PCM handling on 64-bit operating-systems
Added support for additional tags in CUE sheets (Genre/Year)
Added support for MPL2 (Blu-ray) subtitles format
Added support forVPlayer subtitles format (which unfortunately is still in use)
Added support for RTMP (Flash) live video streams, plus skip, pause, and resume feature
Added proper MMS/MMSH streaming client (libmms) support
Added audio and subtitle delay pop-up to the GUI (similar to volume control)
Improved Commercial Skipping, EDL (Edit Decision List), and SceneMarker support
Options for smoother video playback (syncing the video to the refresh rate of the display)
Smart Playlists support for video resolution, aspect-ratio, codec, audio, and subtitles
Extension of ExternalPlayer enabling multiple external players based on file-extension
Added overlay renderer for dvd/vobsub/xsub

Library:

Performance improvements to SQLite (database) queries (help is always wanted here)
Support for movie sets and a sortorder tag in the Video Library
UPnP MediaServer compliant with DLNA (Digital Living Network Alliance) standards
Ability to view pictures over UPnP in XBMC, also loads of fixes to the UPnP library
Added scan for new content command to HTTP API, extended XBMC.updatelibrary call
Reorganized MythTV directory structure to separate TV Shows from Movies
Support importing MythTV movies into the Movies Library (including scraping)
Added support local actor thumbnails (store as actor_name.tbn under .actors directory)
Scrape studio info for TV Show/Season/Episode, info is available via studio field item
Changed handling in Scrapers and NFO replacing «thumbs» with multiple «thumb»
Added library update on resume if we are coming from suspend/hibernate
Ability to scrape and scan TV Shows into the video library by air-date via TheTVDB.com

Scrapers:

TheMovieDB.org (TMDB) movie scraper upgraded to version 2.1
Added Movie Trailer scraping from dtrailer.com to TheMovieDB.org scraper
TheTVDB.com TV Shows scraper scraper improvements and enhancements
MTV (Music Videos) scraper improvements and enhancements
New freebase music scraper (with Artist FanArt support via htbackdrops.com)
New Polish music scraper combining allmusic.com,merlin.pl, and lastfm.pl
New mymovies.dk (Multilanguage) movie scraper (*commercial)
New fdb.pl (Polish) movie scraper
New cinefacts.de (German) movie scraper
New filmdelta.se (Swedish) movie scraper
New world-art.ru (Russian) movie scraper
Updated imdb.cn (Chinese) movie scraper
New cine-passion (French/English) movie scraper
Fixes and additions for the mymovies.xml scraper

Skins:

Confluence is the new default
PM3.HD set to secondary
Removed legacy PM III (farewell old friend)

Windows-Specific:

Changed from Open GL to DirectX for GUI and video rendering.
Added Crash Dump for Windows
Support Milkdrop visualizations

Linux-Specific:

Added support for Debian building and packaging to the XBMC SVN
External libraries options when compiling XBMC for Linux making it more distro agnostic
Support for PPC (PowerPC) processors in XBMC for Linux (OpenGL support required)
Avahi Zeroconf (Zero Configuration Networking) for XBMC webserver
Added DeviceKit.Disks integration
Added DeviceKit.Power and ConsoleKit.Manager integration

OS X Specific:

Logitech Harmony Universal Remote support
Added support for CoreAudio API and removed the PortAudio API code
AC3 and DTS digital audio pass-through to SP/DIF on Apple TV (thanks to CoreAudio)
Support for running external Applescripts
Support for command-tab application switching
support for OS X Spaces (virtual desktops)

Live-Specific:

New installer with disk partitioning support, network setup and language selection
Uses Beatzeps08’s variation of duduke’s great “spinner black” usplash theme! Thanks Beatzeps08!!
Based on Ubuntu Karmic
NVIDIA drivers: 190.53 (VDPAU included on supported GPUs)
ATI/AMD drivers: Catalyst 9.11
Includes the magic tvheadend package, which brings live TV in XBMCLive
The plugin “SVN Repo Installer” is also included, thus installing new scripts/plugins/skins will be easier


XBMC 9.11: RC1 ready for testing
December 17th, 2009 Team XBMC 3 comments

The testing process is winding down, and we are happy to present XBMC 9.11 Release Candidate 1. Assuming there are no major show-stoppers, we expect that this will be the last pre-release before final. That means that this is your last chance to report major bugs, or to help us reproduce or fix the ones that have been identified. If you have submitted a trac ticket and we’ve asked for further assistance, this is the time to help! For those not bold enough to try the pre-releases, watch this site in the coming days for a summary of the new features you can expect to see in Camelot.


XBMC 9.11: Beta2 ready for testing
December 9th, 2009 Team XBMC No comments

Development for Camelot is winding down, and we have a new beta for all brave users to try. We have closed just under 200 bugs since the last beta (to be fair, some of those were translations and other small patches). That is an impressive number, thanks to all who have reported their issues. As we are feature frozen, nothing new has been added this time around, we’re purely focusing on fixing bugs.

As always, head on over to the download page for the latest and greatest. The Ubuntu PPAs will be updated soon. Give it a go, and be sure to submit quality bug reports if you have any issues. Also, please keep great the translations coming!


XBMC 9.11 Beta1: Introducing Confluence
November 22nd, 2009 Team XBMC 2 comments

Confluence_LogoAs the testing portion of Camelot continues, we would like to introduce Confluence as the new default XBMC skin. We have also stopped including the original Project Mayhem III skin (Don’t worry, PM3.HD is still there). It will be added to the gallery soon, but for now you can find it here.

A ‘Confluence’ is the coming together of many things into one point, and the skin lives up to that for sure. Jezz_X started it as a progression of his MediaStream_Redux, but it has evolved into something entirely different from its origins. You’ll surely notice that it shares a home-screen ‘blade’ with MediaStream, a settings screen feel with Aeon, views from many other skins, etc. In short, he’s used ideas from existing skins to make a coherent amalgamation that is both sexy and easy to use. Feel free to visit the gallery for screenshots or the forum to discuss the skin.

Confluence

Confluence 'Fanart' View

Soft String Freeze

Also for this release, the settings cleanup is in the final stages. For the most part, we’ve reorganized and renamed everything that needed attention. All that’s left now is the finishing touches. As a result, you may notice that some of your settings have reverted to the new defaults. Please double-check this before submitting bug reports.

While strings are not completely frozen yet, we ask at this time that translators begin submitting their translations, paying special attention to the settings and Confluence. There should be no new strings and no drastic changes from here on out, only tweaks where they are needed.

Skin Freeze

We’re introducing a skin freeze for this release in an effort to improve the experience of users and alleviate some of the stress for skinners. From this point on, the XBMC skinning engine should be considered frozen, meaning that only bugfixes will be committed. We ask that all skinners take this opportunity to be sure that your skins work with Beta1. Starting with Camelot, the skin gallery will reflect the skins that work in the current STABLE version of XBMC. If skinners wish to link to skins that work on unstable versions of XBMC, they should make the distinction VERY clear on their skin page and optimally link to their forum for all necessary information. We hope that this will help to clear the confusion for the many casual users of XBMC who don’t visit the forum, but want to see the skins that will work in the latest stable version.


XBMC 9.11: Alpha2 ready for testing
November 12th, 2009 Team XBMC

The second testing release in the Camelot series has been tagged and is now available for general consumption. The first Alpha was a great success; all of the known issues listed in the previous announcement have been fixed, along with a slew of others. All of those who are currently using Alpha1 are strongly encouraged to update. Though the same warnings still apply: this should be treated as pre-release software and is only for those who don’t mind running into a few bugs.

As usual, some of the builds are still being created or uploaded. The new files will appear on the downloads page and the PPAs as they become available.


XBMC 9.11: Alpha1 ready for testing
November 4th, 2009 Team XBMC 29 comments

Today we are pleased to announce the first official testing release of 9.11, Codename: Camelot. It’s been quite a while since Babylon, so we’re very excited to begin the release cycle and work towards a new release.

Please keep in mind that this is an early alpha build, and it should be treated as such. While it’s not likely to burn your house down or eat your pets, it’s likely that testers will run into a few bugs. If this happens, please search TRAC to see if someone else has already reported it. If not, you may submit a QUALITY bug report. Keep in mind that the reason for releasing alphas/betas is so that we can get a better feel for what bugs are out there. If you don’t report them, we can’t fix them.

We are also still working hard to clean up the settings. Many useless ones have been removed, but there’s still quite a bit of rearranging to do.

There are a host of new features in this release, far too many to list here. The highlights are:

* DirectX has replaced OpenGL for Windows
* Numerous skinning engine updates which allow for use of some fancy new skins
* Many improvements to the video player which allow for much smoother playback
* Switch to Core Audio on OSX
* Many VDPAU improvements under linux
* Many platform-specific customizations
* Much Much more. We will be showcasing the new features here on xbmc.org as the final release approaches.


XBMC 9.04 Babylon

Final version released.


XBMC 9.04 Babylon RC1 released

No changelog yet


XBMC 9.04 Babylon Beta 1 released
Bookmark and Share By jmarshall, posted April 23, 2009 5:58 am

Hot on the heals of the Alpha 1 release, and some 350 code fixes later, the first (only?) beta release of XBMC 9.04 is now available.New in this release is support for PPC processors under Mac OS X, thanks to new developer Beenje.We’ve also branched for release, which means that from here to the end of the month or so we’ll be only taking well-reviewed fixes in to the final Babylon release.Please give it a run through it’s paces and let us know if you have any problems.The more testing that’s done, the more stable XBMC 9.04 will be!


Babylon Alpha 1 (9.04)

As predicted by many, the codename for this next release is Babylon.New in 9.04 is the VDPAU code (hardware decoding of h264 and VC1 on recent nvidia GPUs on Linux) worked on by motd2k, and the path cleanup work (XBMC will no longer steal all those drive letters on Windows), in addition to all the usual improvements that you’ve come accustomed to expecting.

We’ll need help to get things nice and stable for release.This means taking time to test things thoroughly, helping developers reproduce problems, identifying any holes in the current documentation and so on.

Let the bug-bashing begin!


XBMC ‘Atlantis’ released

Team-XBMC is proud to announce the cross-platform release of XBMC Media Center for Linux, Mac OS X (Leopard, Tiger, and Apple TV), Windows, and Xbox, code named ‘Atlantis‘.

We’ve reached the end of over 3 months of bug bashing, and have closed 425 tickets for this release and, while there are still some bugs outstanding, we feel that ‘Atlantis’ is reasonably stable, and thus it’s time to move on and get cracking on new features.We’ve branched for release, and will maintain this branch with critical bug fixes while we move on and begin working on new features in the main linuxport trunk.

Thanks to all in the community who have made this possible by reporting bugs and suggesting improvements.In particular we’d like to recognise the sterling efforts of Sho who was our release manager for ‘Atlantis’, diligently handling the trac system on behalf of developers.We’d also like to thank our new QA team of Arnova, SandmanCL and ShortySco for their help verifying bug reports and making it easier for the devs to concentrate on fixing bugs.

Go grab XBMC ‘Atlantis’ and let us know how it goes!


XBMC 'Atlantis' Beta 2 release

Team-XBMC is proud to announce the second cross-platform Beta version of XBMC Media Center for Linux, Mac OS X (Leopard, Tiger, and Apple TV), Windows, and Xbox, in preparation for the upcoming point release of XBMC, code named 'Atlantis'.

New in this release is multi-core video decoding for Windows users, courtesy of a rebuilt FFmpeg by WiSo and AreaScout, and XBMC now runs on the Apple TV via the easy to use USB installer created by Scott Davilla. We've also updated the skins (PM3.HD, Project Mayhem III, and MediaStream by Team Razorfish) to their latest versions.

With almost 80 tickets closed, and close to 200 commits to SVN since Beta 1 was released, Beta 2 represents a clear step forward in terms of stability. Thanks to all in the community who have made this possible by reporting bugs and suggesting improvements!

Go grab XBMC 'Atlantis' Beta 2 and let us know how it goes!

For more information see:
http://xbmc.org


XBMC 'Atlantis' Beta 1 release

Team-XBMC is proud to announce the first cross-platform Beta version of XBMC media center for Linux, Mac OS X, Windows, and Xbox, in preparation for the upcoming stable release of XBMC, code named 'Atlantis'. There are three important news items associated with this release:

1. The first item that is new in this release is the brand new skin "PM3.HD", a high-definition tribute to Project Mayhem III, which will be gracing screens as the default skin on Linux, Mac OS X, and Windows. Xbox users can, of course, choose to use this skin if they wish as well, and the original Project Mayhem III skin is still packaged with Beta 1 for those who prefer the old-school look. This is in addition to the already awesome selection of skins available for XBMC.

2. The second item is the initial release of "XBMC Live", a bootable CD which gives users the opportunity to try XBMC on their computer, without touching their harddrive. In addition, XBMC Live allows installation of XBMC, complete with an operating system, onto a USB flash memory sticks for a permanent, fast booting, dedicated set-top-box style installation of XBMC. XBMC Live is designed to support Microsoft's MCE Remote and USB receiver out-of-the-box.

3. The third item is that the XBMC for Mac release now has initial support for integrating iTunes and iPhoto media into XBMC. For more information on this, please read this developers blog entry; "iTunes and iPhoto integration in XBMC". The Mac release of Beta 1 also comes bundled with a bonus skin for XBMC, and that is MediaStream by Team Razorfish, (this skin can, of course, be downloaded and installed on all XBMC platforms, like all other XBMC skins).

You should know that XBMC 'Atlantis' is still in a feature freeze, the final release of which is scheduled for October, and we really need your help in order to make 'Atlantis' as stable as possible. We encourage all users to download and use this Beta release in preference to using SVN or the Alpha builds, and test it thoroughly, reporting all bugs to our tracking system.

We would also appreciate any and all assistance in making sure that the online manual and FAQ are as up to date as possible. Both the online manual and FAQ are wiki based so just register and request write access if you wish to contribute. In addition, translations and updates of XBMC language files is another area where help would be appreciated.

Finally, we would like to take this opportunity to thank the XBMC community for the great feedback in terms of bug reports and usability suggestions. Without your assistance, we would never be able to make XBMC as solid and stable as it is right now.

XBMC Live (ISO in ZIP archive):
XBMC_for_Windows-Atlantis-Beta_1.zip

XBMC for Mac
XBMC_for_Mac-Atlantis-Beta_1.dmg

XBMC for Windows:
XBMC_for_Windows-Atlantis-Beta_1.exe

For more information please visit http://xbmc.org

Yours sincerely / Team-XBMC


XBMC Atlantis Alpha 3
Today Team-XBMC has officially hit a feature freeze in anticipation of an upcoming stable release of XBMC, codenamed 'Atlantis'. XBMC Atlantis will be released on Linux, Mac, Windows, and Xbox simultaneously in about 2-months time. You may track the development progress here.

In order to make this release as stable as possible, we will need your help with testing the XBMC and reporting bugs to trac. We would also appreciate all and any assistance in making sure that the XBMC online manual and FAQ is as up-to-date as possible, (both the manual and FAQ are wiki based so anyone who register can request write access from us), in addition, translations and updates of the language files are also wanted.

An "Alpha 3" release for all platforms will be released shortly. We encourage all XBMC users to use this release instead of SVN builds when reporting bugs.

Changelog
http://xbmc.org/trac/timeline