Kodi 20 “Nexus” Arrives After Two Years with AV1, Full HDR Support

A new version of Kodi arrives, code-named Kodi 20.0 “Nexus”, bringing modern AV1 media streaming support and more.

KODI is a free and open-source media player software application. It allows users to play and view most streaming media, such as videos, music, podcasts, and videos from the internet, as well as all standard digital media files from local and network storage media.

It’s available for multiple operating systems and hardware platforms and can be seamlessly used with a TV with remote controls.

KODI has a massive library of add-ons that can be downloaded to expand its capabilities. It’s a popular choice for home theatre PC enthusiasts and is sometimes referred to as the “ultimate for the living room”.

Kodi 20 “Nexus”: Key Updates

The breakaway feature in this release is the AV1 media support. AV1 media is a modern video codec designed for streaming over the internet. Many modern streaming and video apps started incorporating the support of this format.

In Kodi 20.0, “Nexus” now support hardware decoding of AV1 media. And opens it up for add-ons for better feature development.

This is an excellent addition to Kodi, meaning users can enjoy high-quality video with lower bandwidth requirements. It also sets Kodi up for the future. Because AV1 is expected to become increasingly popular as more content becomes available in this format.

If you use Kodi on a Windows desktop, then you should be glad to know that Kodi 20.0 now supports full HDR via the Windows DXVA/2 video pipeline. However, HDR is not available on non-Desktop, i.e. UWP Store (Xbox) versions

Other noteworthy updates in this release include Kodi now allows multiple instances of a binary add-on. For example, TVHeadend users can now run more than one add-on instance to connect to multiple back-end TVHeadend servers, with individual settings like channel groups and hidden channels maintained per add-on instance.

This feature is a huge plus for Kodi users, as it opens up many new possibilities for using the media player. It will be especially useful for those who use Kodi to access multiple back-end servers.

The subtitle system in Kodi has also undergone significant rework. The subtitle formats are more consistent with 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.

All these, plus a significant volume of improvement, graces this release, which you can download via the below steps.

How to Download

The official Flatpak app in Flathub is yet to get this update as of publishing this post. Keep a watch on this page. And install it using the below command.

flatpak install tv.kodi.Kodi

Already running prior version Kodi 19.5? Then update it using the below command:

flatpak update tv.kodi.Kodi

Ubuntu, Linux Mint and other Debian-based users can use the following PPA to get this version.

sudo apt install software-properties-common
sudo add-apt-repository -y ppa:team-xbmc/ppa
sudo apt install kodi

Arch Linux users can install it using the below command.

pacman -S kodi

For other download options, visit this page.

Via announcement

Detailed changelog

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