There is a new version of the open source media center application XBMC (which is now called Kodi) available for testing. The development team say Kodi 14.0 “Helix” will be a stability release focusing on cleaning up the code, fixing UI errors and preparing for the future. However there are still significant changes to Kodi, it now uses FFmpeg 2.2.4 which means it will be able to playback h.265 and VP9 video formats. These formats have a very high compression ratio with little loss of quality and will be useful with 4K video coming down the road. The library system has been improved, scanning is much faster especially on Android and there is improved compatibility UPnP servers like Media Browser and Play On. Android support has been improved with better support for the various Android chipsets so you get improved fast forward and rewind capability, as well as 4K support for the AMLogic s802 chipset. For iOS device you should see much better Airplay functionality as many of the bug have been fixed. For Windows, Linux and OSX the improvements and in audio playback with the fixing of audio bugs.

There are plenty of other changes including PVR updates (see the release notes) and it is still early in the development cycle but you can give Kodi a try by downloading the Alpha version.

Official Kodi 14.0 alpha2 downloads , Raspberry Pi versions can be found on the forum

Via xbmc.org

Leave a Reply