Kodi 20 Home Theater Software has been released

Kodi 20.0, codename "Nexus", has been released. The final version of Kodi 20.0 includes major new features and improvements, smaller changes and fixes. Highlights include support for AV1 hardware encoding, support for multiple binary add-on instances, and more.

Kodi 20.0 downloads are provided on the official project website already. The multimedia application is available for the desktop operating systems Windows, Linux and Mac, for the mobile operating systems Android and iOS, and for Raspberry Pi devices. Support for Android allows Kodi to be installed on many TV streaming devices, including Amazon Fire TV.

All known blockers have been cleared in the release, so that all supported platforms will be updated.

Note: Microsoft Defender SmartScreen may display a warning screen when the Kodi installer is run. The installer is new and that is why the SmartScreen warning is displayed.

The last major Kodi release, Kodi 19.0, was released in February 2021. More than 4600 commits have found their way into the new version of Kodi according to the team.

Kodi 20.0 Highlights

• AV1 Video Support --- hardware decoding of AV1 media is now supported on several Kodi platforms. Addons may also play AV1 streams thanks to an update of the Inputstream API.
• Multiple binary addons instances -- Multiple instances of binary addons may now be loaded; this may be useful for certain addons that support different servers or connections.
• Subtitle system rework --  Kodi 20.0 features a massive rework of the subtitle system. Development and maintenance is improved as a consequence, and some features that could not be supported previously may now be supported.  The development team lists dynamic positioning of fonts, subtitle positioning, improve multi-language support and color changes as new features.
• HDR support on Windows -- full HDR support for desktop Windows systems (not on Xbox). Improvements include "more accurate ACES Filmic" and HABLE tonemapping.
• NFSv4 support -- Network File System Version 4 support added. It is necessary to either select NSFv3 or NSFV4.
• Context Menu improvements -- right-click and long-press context menu handling improved.
• Game Savestate Support improvements -- gamers may save game states at any time now, and even if the games do not provide native savestate features.

The release features many under-the-hood changes that improve stability, performance and safety, according to the announcement on the official blog.

Closing Words

Preparations to start work on the next major Kodi release, Kodi 21.0, started already.

Now You: do you use Kodi? What is your impression of the new version?

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