Kodi 21.0, the major update which you can’t afford to miss!
Kodi, the well-known open-source media center, has recently rolled out its latest version, Kodi 21.0, after more than a year of development. Formerly recognized as XBMC, Kodi offers a user-friendly interface for accessing Live TV, managing a collection of photos, movies, and music, and supports navigation through TV shows while working with an electronic TV guide and organizing video recordings according to a schedule.
Kodi is available for various platforms, including Linux, FreeBSD, Raspberry Pi, Android, Windows, macOS, tvOS, and iOS. The project code is distributed under the GPLv2+ license.
Kodi has several remarkable features, including support for a wide range of multimedia file formats and hardware acceleration of video decoding, support for remote controls, the ability to play files via FTP/SFTP, SSH, and WebDAV, a flexible system of plugins implemented in Python, and the ability to download metadata for existing content.
That said, let’s quickly round up the best new features.
Kodi 21.0: What’s New
- The transition to using the main FFmpeg codebase instead of maintaining a separate copy, which allows for the use of packages provided by distributions with FFmpeg and simplifies the transition to new versions of FFmpeg in the future.
- Added support for High Dynamic Range (HDR10) metadata, providing a more vibrant and lifelike viewing experience.
- Added support for images in AVIF format and improved video playback in AV1 format, enabling higher-quality video playback with better compression.
- Stabilized support for access to external storage using the NFSv4 protocol, ensuring smoother access to external storage devices.
- Improved support for the Retroplayer ecosystem, which provides a means to run retro games in a Kodi-based environment, allowing users to enjoy classic games within the Kodi interface.
- The default Estouchy design theme has been removed from the basic package and can be downloaded separately by those interested, streamlining the installation process for new users.
- Improved cache efficiency to speed up loading of images and album covers, enhancing the overall user experience.
- Improved compatibility with official smart TV apps when navigating and displaying information using UPnP, allowing for better integration with smart TVs.
- Added the ability to select an action when starting playback (for example, you can choose to continue playback from an interrupted position), providing more control over the playback experience.
- Improved compatibility with the Android platform, including detection of content encoded using Dolby Vision and HDR10, and added a setting to stop working when the application is minimized (to save power consumption), ensuring a better experience for Android users.
- Improved performance for accessing external content using the SMB protocol, allowing for faster and more efficient access to external content.
- Added support for building using Python 3.12, ensuring compatibility with the latest version of Python.
Overall, Kodi 21.0 is an exciting release for Kodi users, bringing several new features and improvements that will make the media center even more powerful and user-friendly.
You can download this latest version from the official website. If you are using Kodi earlier version, simply upgrading your operating system or apps (for mobiles) would get you this release.
Via changelog
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