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Kodi 20 ‘Nexus’ Beta 1 now available for download and install for both iOS and tvOS

Kodi ‘Nexus’ Beta 1 is the first beta release, and the most stable to date. The Kodi Foundation says of it: “This is the first Beta release of Nexus, and we are quite confident in its stability.

Here’s everything that’s new.

Addons

  • Assorted binary addon fixes/updates — imagedecoder, screensaver, vis. Thanks to @AlwinEsch as always for the huge amount of work supporting Kodi’s addon interfaces.
  • Fix/refactor “multi instance” GUI settings for addons. This work carries on from the PVR binary addons being able to have multiple backend instances.
  • New id3 tag metadata stream support for PVR Radio addons.
  • Add new SetVideoResolution with max resolution.

Database

  • Clean DB was previously broken in earlier Nexus builds. This has now been fixed by @enen92.

Disc

  • Update libbluray to 1.3.2 for all platforms.
  • Fix a “double free” issue when ejecting a disk .- Sidenote: thank you @prahal for your first contribution to Kodi core.
  • Handle BD_EVENT_DISCONTINUITY.

Filesystem

  • UPNP fixes for picture handling .
  • First time contributor @ihipop improved support for subtitle formats when accessed via UPNP DLNA.

General

  • Fix bookmark resume for .strm files.
  • Fix jsonrpc Player.GetProperties response when playback from a widget is done.
  • Fix race condition in CJobmanager causing crashes – Sidenote: @neo1973 is our newest team member, welcome to the team!
  • Application refactors. A large effort by @notspiff refactoring some very old code into more manageable chunks.
  • Assorted improvements found by static analysis tools. Thanks @Rechi.
  • Write correct duration to tracks in M3U playlists.
  • Improvements to the header inclusions for a lot of areas of Kodi. This is a step to improve build times in general that mostly aims to reduce the number of components rebuilt when changes were made in a few extremely common objects. Thanks @notspiff, @ksooo.
  • @rubpa has diagnosed and fixed a race condition in picture thumbnail loading.

Input

  • Mouse cleanup.

network

  • Another first time contributor @jjlin added support for HTTPS proxies.

Platform Specific

  • Unix based platforms
  • Android and Apple platforms now ship with Python 3.11 built in. Python 3.11 is a very notable release due to considerable improvements in CPython regarding speed. Checkout the python release notes for more info.
  • TVOS

    • Sensitivity on the Remote has been reduced, and the tooltip and setting has been made more intuitive by @sy6sy2.

    PVR

    • Assorted EPG search fixes.

    • Added possibility to browse available PVR client add-ons from PVR settings.

    • Channels and Recordings now can be sorted by provider.

    • Various fixes and performance improvements.

    • Large refactoring improvements.

    Favourites

    • Replace favorites dialog with new favorites window, providing different views and other enhancements.

    Skinning

    • Added a new infobool System.Setting(hideunwatchedepisodethumbs).

    • Estuary specifics

    • PVR Channel Manager redesign.

    • Click on PVR Home screen section icon now opens Channels window again.

    • Some smaller changes to the PVR OSD.

    • Extend music context menu functionality, add ability to play albums directly from home screen.

    • Extend video context menu functionality.

    Subtitles

    • Fix for 3D MVC subtitles not appearing correct when frame packed.

    Video

    • Inputstream support for AV1 codec.

    • Don’t attempt to use hardware AV1 decode if forcing software decoding. This fixes AV1 thumbnail generation on devices that don’t support AV1 hardware decoding.