After two years since the publication of the last significant branch, the release of the open media center Kodi 19.0, previously developed under the name XBMC, took place. Ready-made installation packages are available for Linux, FreeBSD, Raspberry Pi, Android, Windows, macOS, tvOS, and iOS. A PPA repository has been created for Ubuntu. The project code is distributed under the GPLv2+ license.
Since the last release, about 5 changes have been made to the codebase by 50 developers, including approximately 600 lines of new code added. Main innovations:
- Significantly improved metadata processing: Added new tags and provided the ability to download files with tags via HTTPS. Improved handling of collections and multi-disc CD sets. Improved handling of album release date and album play time.
- The possibilities of the library of media files have been expanded. Strengthened the connection of various components with the music library, for example, to retrieve information about musicians and albums, show videos and albums at the same time when searching, display additional information in dialogs. Improved grouping of video clips by musicians. Improved handling of ".nfo" files across platforms.
- Added a setting to automatically open full-screen music visualization mode when playback starts. A new music visualization mode is proposed, designed in the style of the interface from the film The Matrix.
- Added the ability to change the transparency level of subtitles and provided a new dark gray subtitle design. Provided the ability to download subtitles by specifying a URI (URL link, local file).
- Built-in software video decoder in AV1 format.
- Implemented new video scaling handlers based on OpenGL.
- The default Estuary theme, optimized for remote control TV screens, has been redesigned for the music visualization window. Additional multimedia informational flags have been added to the visualization window. By default, a widescreen playlist display mode is enabled with the ability to move the list to any area of the screen through the side menu. A new "Now Playing" information block has been added, showing detailed information about the currently playing song and the next song in the playlist.
- Improved image quality in pixel art games.
- Added support for the tvOS platform and dropped support for 32-bit iOS. On the iOS platform, support is provided for game controllers that work via Bluetooth, such as Xbox and PlayStation. Added an indicator of free and total space on the drive.
- Added support for static HDR10 for all sources and dynamic HDR Dolby Vision for streaming services on the Android platform. Added support for static HDR10 on the Windows platform.
- Added Python-written metadata loading handlers (scraper) for music - "Generic Album Scraper" and "Generic Artist Scraper", as well as for movies and TV shows - "The Movie Database Python" and "The TVDB (new)". These handlers have replaced the old XML-based metadata loaders.
- Improved PVR mode (watching Live TV, listening to Internet radio, working with an electronic TV guide and arranging video recording according to a schedule). Added viewing reminder system. Implemented home screen widgets for TV and radio channel groups. Improved channel and group management interface. Added the ability to sort channels and TV guide (EPG) items according to the order given by the backend. Improved performance of search, EPG and TV guide. Provided an API for developing PVR add-ons in C++.
- Added a warning about possible security issues when running the web interface on an external network interface. By default, the password request is enabled when accessing the web interface.
- For installed add-ons, a source check is provided to prevent the add-on from being overwritten when an add-on with the same name appears in a connected third-party repository. Added additional warnings about violation of the integrity or obsolescence of add-ons.
- Ended support for Python 2. Add-on development moved to Python 3.
- Provided a single universal Linux executable that supports running on top of X11, Wayland and GBM.
Recall that initially, the project was aimed at creating an open multimedia player for the XBOX game console, but in the process of development it was transformed into a cross-platform media center running on modern software platforms. Of the interesting features of Kodi, one can note support for a wide range of multimedia formats and hardware-accelerated video decoding; support for remote controls; the ability to play files via FTP / SFTP, SSH and WebDAV; Possibility of remote control via web-interface; the presence of a flexible system of plug-ins implemented in the Python language and available for installation through a special directory of add-ons; preparation of plugins for integration with popular online services; the ability to download metadata (lyrics, covers, ratings, etc.) for existing content. About a dozen commercial set-top boxes and several open branches (Boxee, GeeXboX, 9x9 Player, MediaPortal, Plex) are developing on the basis of Kodi.
Source: opennet.ru