Kodi 19 arrives in alpha version and reveals its first outstanding news, such as AV1 support

A little over a week ago, the project that develops the software that was born as a multimedia center for the XBOX (XBMC, XBOX Media Center) He launched which is expected to be Leia's last maintenance update. In their release note they mentioned that they were already working on the next version, a Kodi 19 of which during this weekend have thrown its first alpha version. His codename, something that was already known, will be "The Matrix."

With regard to being an alpha version, there are a few things to keep in mind: no option to test it on linux, and whoever decides to install it must be clear that they are going to encounter some bugs. The project warns of something else, and this will also be present at the time of the launch of the stable version: they are going to make the leap to Python 3, so some addons, such as those that depend on Python 2, will stop working. This will be fixed over time, when the developers update their addons.

News that will arrive with Kodi 19 «Matrix»

Audio / Music

• Improved management of CD sets and multi-disc cases.
• Additional metadata tags.
• Improved handling of album release dates.
• New setting to open music display / full screen window automatically when playback starts.
• A new Matrix-inspired music visualization is now available to install; great care has been taken to make it work well on low-end systems.

Video and subtitles

• Support for AV1.
• Caption opacity can now be changed.
• New dark gray color for subtitles.

Changes in the Estuary theme, which follows by default in Kodi 19

• Music display / full-screen window redesign to match other full-screen windows - allows fanart and visualizations to be displayed without color overlays.
• Additional multimedia information flags added to the information screen of the music display window / full screen.
• The default playlist view now uses the wide list view format with options in the side menu as in other areas of the skin.
• A new "Now Playing" view has been added for music playback, showing the multimedia details of any song selected in the playlist and of any song currently playing.

Games

• The iOS version supports controllers, such as those for the PlayStation and the XBOX.

Information providers (scrappers)

• New Python scrappers for music: available in repository as Generic Album Scrapper and Generic Artist Scrapper.
• New Python Scrappers for TV and Movies - Available from repositories such as The Movie Database Python and The TVDB (new).

PVR

• PVR reminders.
• Estuary TV and radio channel groups and home screen widgets.
• Group administrator usability improvements.
• Channel manager usability improvements.
• Guidance window navigation controls.
• Enhancements to the Estuary PVR information dialog.
• The 'Switch to full screen' setting now supports channel types.
• Playlist context menu items for recordings.
• Dynamic PVR categories for the Estuary home screen.
• Ability to sort channels and EPGs by the order of the backend channels.
• Supports group specific channel numbering and option to start group number locally from 1.
• Support to start EPG inputs as live.
• Supports displaying recording sizes and being able to sort by them.
• New, live, final and premiere for EPGs, recordings and timers.
• Guide window performance improvements.
• Search window performance improvements.
• EPG performance and memory usage optimizations.
• C ++ API for PVR plugin development.

Red

• Improved information on the security implications of enabling external interfaces.
• Added a default switch to require a password for the web interface.

addons

• I go to Python 3.
• Kodi will now enforce the origin of installed add-ons and their dependencies. This has been implemented to prevent third-party repositories from overwriting unrelated plugin code, which was the cause of numerous bug reports in the past.

Specific changes that Kodi 19 will include per platform

• On Darwin platforms (Apple), Objective-C code has migrated from manual memory management to ARM.
• iOS:
  • Added function to show total / free space.
  • The Kodi log can now be shared using the native sharing sheet.
  • The Kodi GUI is no longer obscured on notch devices.
• MacOS:
  • The setting to turn off other screens no longer requires the app to be restarted.
  • Now the general macOS shortcut is used to put the app in full screen.
• Android:
  • Static HDR10 support for all types of sources, if the device supports it.
  • Support for Dynamic Dolby Vision HDR for streaming services, if the device supports it.
• Windows It will also support Static HDR10 for all types of sources, if the computer's GPU supports it.

Kodi 19 "Matrix" has no release date yet

With all of the above, surely many of us feel the need to try it, but, as we have explained, that is not possible yet in Linux. And about the stable release, the project has not mentioned any dates yet, so we can only wait and be patient.