Kodi

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 c…

Here we go folks, ramping things up and we have the first Release Candidate (RC) for Kodi "Nexus". As always, thanks go out to all contributors for their work. We are nearing 4,000 commits since v19 "Matrix" was first released on February 19th 2021. For everyone that has contributed, both those in Team Kodi and all other devs that choose to roll up their sleeves and fix an issue. Everyone appreciates you for making Kodi better. We also want to thank all those users who provide endless support on the forums, we appreciate you, and all the support anyone provides to our users. Addon Devs We'll put this at the top of this post, as there was an API break after Beta 1 was r…

The moment is here to move to an even more optimal translation service for our application. Ultimately we have chosen Weblate, and its service will be hosted at https://kodi.weblate.cloud/. This is done to optimize our workflow and to allow easy inclusion of all add-ons in the official Kodi add-on repository. The transition has taken its time during at least the last year, so if you have made any requests at Transifex for new languages or team additions in that period, we're sorry we couldn't implement them. All current translations have been transferred to Weblate, and we would like to thank you for all your efforts in making Kodi the multi-lingual success it is. We h…

Last year at FOSDEM, we were approached about our usage of analytics software on our websites that gives visitor data to big companies with servers located in countries with data protection laws that are less strict than what EU citizens are accustomed to. Team Kodi has always had a firm stance against user tracking in our software, so it felt inconsistent that we did not extend the same level of prudence to our websites. At first, we considered removing analytics altogether. But it quickly became clear that this would be problematic for our Wiki maintainers: Without any insight into what pages are viewed most, it is next to impossible to prioritize the pages to update a…

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 …

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 "beh…

Slightly delayed Alpha 2, but here we go. We had a bit of a wild ride more due to behind the scenes update and changes - however, the good news is that it's given us more time for fixes and additions. Release notes Platform Specific Android Fix a stutter when the Kodi Android app was opened, closed and opened again. One of our team members (@thexai) noticed an issue with a recent PR that caused media stuttering to occur only after the app was opened and closed and reopened again without a force close. @ksooo has come up with a fix, so hopefully playback should be a better experience over Alpha 1. Another TrueHD fix - buffers reduced to a specific level to optimise d…

Editorial note: this blog post has been delayed for technical reasons, so the release is already available. Time marches on for Kodi 21 "Omega", we are here with the third Beta release! This is a major release, so, as you'd expect, it comes with many new features. However, with a core change to FFmpeg 6.0, there is a very good chance that some regressions may occur. As such, please be aware that installing this will most likely break things, and we'd really like your help at that point to identify the problems and get them fixed. Please raise Github issues with full debug logs to help us resolve any issues you wonderful testers come across. First, we'd like to make a …

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. …

In the last 24 hours we became aware of a dump of the Kodi user forum (MyBB) software being advertised for sale on internet forums. This post confirms that a breach has taken place. MyBB admin logs show the account of a trusted but currently inactive member of the forum admin team was used to access the web-based MyBB admin console twice: on 16 February and again on 21 February. The account was used to create database backups which were then downloaded and deleted. It also downloaded existing nightly full-backups of the database. The account owner has confirmed they did not access the admin console to perform these actions. The admin team have disabled the account used …

This release is so fresh that we don't yet even have an image... oops! It's been a hectic last couple of months in the world of Kodi, but the wheels keep on turning. Without any further ado, we are happy to announce the first Alpha release for Kodi 21.x "Omega". This is a major release, so, as you'd expect, it comes with many new features. However, with a core change to FFmpeg 6.0, there is a very good chance that some regressions may occur. As such, please be aware that installing this will most likely break things, and we'd really like your help at that point to identify the problems and get them fixed. Please raise Github issues with full debug logs to help us resolv…

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…

So... here we have a second Release Candidate for Kodi v20 "Nexus". While we have a fairly small number of fixes, they are fairly major. As always, thanks go out to all contributors for their work. We are nearing 4,000 commits since v19 "Matrix" was first released on February 19th 2021. For everyone that has contributed, both those in Team Kodi and all other devs that choose to roll up their sleeves and fix an issue. Everyone appreciates you for making Kodi better. We also want to thank all those users who provide endless support on the forums, we appreciate you, and all the support anyone provides to our users. Android Users A note for any users who are running Kodi o…

Heya fellow net dwellers, Right now the Remote Chaos Experience (RC3) is already running at full steam as virtual replacement for the 37th Chaos Communication Congress (37C3) that was supposed to be held in Leipzig, Germany, at exactly this time. While we did not register an official assembly, some Team Kodi members are roaming around the RC3 world and we will use the opportunity to hold a short "What's new" presentation plus Q&A session on the last day of the congress. The exact date and time is Wednesday, 30th December, 2 p.m. CET. The event is over and the recording is available on YouTube. View the full article

Time flies, and we're already at the third and final day of DevCon 2024. We'll be losing people today as they head home, which will shorten events; additionally, most of the day is scheduled for the inevitable people-sitting-together-and-hacking-code later today, which will also eat into time, so this will inevitably be a short post. Random, spontaneous, unstructured conversations about mirrors, more about release cycles, about merging. A wild conversation about a potential third-party conference in south Asia, and how any of us would physically get there anyway, given that some of our members don't fly for climate reasons (and we can't afford it anyway). Various debates…

Things are beginning to heat up for Kodi 21 "Omega" with the first Beta release! This is a major release, so, as you'd expect, it comes with many new features. However, with a core change to FFmpeg 6.0, there is a very good chance that some regressions may occur. As such, please be aware that installing this will most likely break things, and we'd really like your help at that point to identify the problems and get them fixed. Please raise Github issues with full debug logs to help us resolve any issues you wonderful testers come across. First, we would like to make a few targeted announcements. Android users Many users may still be on the Kodi testing track for thei…

Good morning, dear reader (okay, "readers" - I'll be generous, and assume there's more than one of you!). It's a beautiful day, the skies are an endless sea of blue, the forecast is a congenial 20℃ spring day - and we're back in a sealed room, and ready to get going with Day Two of this year's DevCon. First up, romanvm, with a talk on computer text encoding - not necessarily Kodi-specific, but something that affects so many applications, particularly when using non-Latin scripts. Fundamentally, all text is abstract, and we simply need an agreed way to represent some symbols in a binary form so they can be stored, manipulated, and retrieved as needed - from 7-bit ASCII to…

Hi! This is just a quick note to let everyone know that Team Kodi will be present at the Free and Open Source Developers European Meeting (FOSDEM) in Brussels on 3 & 4 February 2024. We will have a booth in Building H level 1 where you can try out Kodi and chat with us at your leisure :) We have team members attending that are knowledgeable about, among other things, Python add-on programming, Kodi on Linux, the Kodi flatpak package, and Kodi on embedded GPUs. If you're in the area, we'd love to see you and get your first-hand feedback about ... well, anything, really. We're also planning to have some sample branded merchandise for you to look at - so, please, join…

Is Web 3.0 here? We don't know, but Kore 3.0 certainly is! Shiny, decentralized and software-based, it's ready to take over your old, centralized, atom-based remote. As a major release there are lots of changes, too many in fact to list here, but the main ones are: Migration to Google's Material 3 UI guidelines, which include: Complete review of themes and colors, adding support for light and dark modes based on the device's settings, and for dynamic colors, which change the UI colors depending on the current wallpaper (only available on Android 12 and up); Update of buttons, text boxes, icons, images, etc. to the latest UI standards; Review of transitions between sect…

As you may have seen on other posts, we're broadly back on line now, with the forum, Wiki and paste sites all operational. It's been a huge effort by several key team members - I won't name names, but you know who you are - and we're all immensely grateful for their work. So, without putting on a hair shirt...in the interests of transparency and minimising the chances of anything like this happening again, we've really had to dig into this to see what we can learn. First of all - what happened? This is probably the most important question, and actually one of the hardest to definitively answer. We've been open about the attack vector being an old administrative accoun…

Since we released 19.0 "Matrix", we've been hearing a lot of noise about how people's addons have stopped working, and why we're all Really Bad People for doing this. We thought it would be worth helping people understand what's happening here - mostly, because our fingers are getting tired from trying to explain, and it'll save an awful lot of typing in the forum, or on Facebook, or wherever. Please remember, first of all, that Kodi itself does not automatically update. We might tell you that a new version is available, sure, but we never force a new version onto you: that's entirely a product of your chosen operating system and configuration. It's probably enabled by d…

After all, "that which we call a rose by any other name would smell just as sweet" - okay, Shakespeare maybe had a point, but, for obvious reasons, he didn't know anything about software. For us, names matter because they usually herald a new release, a major change, and, yes, lots of lovely, cuddly new features. So, as is traditional as we move through our current release cycle - Kodi v20 "Nexus" recently entered beta - it's time to announce the name for what will become Kodi v21. As usual, we ran a forum post for suggestions, and we then worked through them to remove the obviously-profane, legislatively-dubious or downright impossible to type quickly, and then put it t…

Time for the next milestone release for Kodi 21 "Omega". This is our second Alpha release for this cycle. This is a major release, so, as you'd expect, it comes with many new features. However, with a core change to FFmpeg 6.0, there is a very good chance that some regressions may occur. As such, please be aware that installing this will most likely break things, and we'd really like your help at that point to identify the problems and get them fixed. Please raise Github issues with full debug logs to help us resolve any issues you wonderful testers come across. Over the last couple of months we've merged 120 pull requests - fixing issues, adding features, and improvin…

Hi, everyone - I'm Keith, and while I now find myself President of the Kodi Foundation, my initial involvement with Kodi goes way back, as a humble user. Since our 20th anniversary came and went, I've been meaning to write a bit of a look back on how we got here - how I got here. This is the story of my - and the project's - journey. In the Beginning... In 2002, a couple guys saw the potential of being able to watch media on their own terms, through what was a new type of device: a "connected" TV device. They wanted to bring many things you'd traditionally need a computer for to the living room, operating it from the couch without needing a keyboard or mouse, controllin…

In 2015, Kodi’s default theme Confluence was growing long in the tooth. Most of the really exciting skins from that time accomplished far more, and Confluence was ultimately a 2009 update to an existing skin called MediaStream that was itself several years old. It was time for Confluence to retire. We needed something new that adhered to the UX best practices of the time. I proposed some wireframes based on Google’s Material Design that were pretty vague, but I hoped would be enough to get us started. Almost immediately, members of our team of skilled skinners (Phil65 and Piers) jumped on the task. I made my initial suggestion early on the 17th of June, and Piers had…