Kodi 16 Jarvis release candidate 1

Kodi users have the first release candidate of Kodi 16 “Jarvis” ready for testing. Version 16 has a lot of changes over 15.0 including DirectX11, improved PVR and much improved UPnP. While not a direct replacement for Windows Media Center it is a good Media Center system for Windows 10.

You can get the release candidate from Kodi.tv and here I what has changed in since 15:

What did change in Kodi 16:

• Implement the more future proof DirectX11 for Windows which still works for DirectX9 video cards;

• Event logging which among others shows which video files didn’t got added to your library;

• Skin settings are now stored as separate files like any other add-on which makes migrating settings a lot easier;

• Image resource add-ons which provide a single point of entry for skins to share common used images like movie studio icons and record labels which saves quite a lot of space and bandwidth;

• Audio DSP  (Digital Signal Processing)  add-on integration and are already included which could make things possible like equalizers, sound processing, fake surround and more

• PVR/DVR section has been extended and improved massively which now also handles series recording

• Music library improvements which includes asking to scan to library when adding locations and also better tag scanning

• Button long-press which extends the functionality of a single button to handle two functions which is great for button deprived remotes

• User interface now supports a new stereoscopic depth effect for 3D TVs or VR headsets

• Extend the UPnP server/client integration between Kodi installations

• Android now support a Surface Rendering which keeps the interface at normal HD resolution while allows playback of 4K on supported devices

• Removal of the infamous libstagefright on Android  which served us for the past year while the Android platform matured to a fully fetaured MediaCodec

• Add-on manager underwent heavy changes which includes slightly different structure, per add-on auto-update on/off switch, better update/rollback support to choose from repos,

• Extend the included keyboard layouts which includes Korean and Chinese

• Improved multi-touch support which now also works on Linux

• Gives skin developers a more reliable platform to work from and reduce amount of work for adapting to new Kodi versions

• Greatly improved audio and video playback in general