By The media center application Kodi (previously known as XBMC) announced their newest release: Kodi 19.0 nicknamed "Matrix".
Although not revealed in the release notes, the release name "Matrix" certainly pays tribute to the previous "The Matrix Trilogy" and the upcoming "The Matrix 4" movie. The Matrix-style visualization of computer screens has been around since "The Matrix" was released in 1999 – and was probably used by every coder at least once in their lifetime.
What's under the hood?
- Improved metadata handling for audio files (dates, album duration, multi-disc sets, etc)
- HDR10 video support across multiple Operating Systems (Windows and Android)
- Screen redesign in the user interface, new "now playing" view, new and updated GUI controls
- Subtitles gets a lot of updated, from changing colors and opacity as well as fixing the timestamp overlay
- For add-on developers: Python 2 is dead, long live Python 3
- The previous XML based metadata scraper is replaced by the new Python scraper (for movies and tv shows)
- PVR (receiving tv or radio signals using a tuner card) tools received a lot of attention: PVR reminders, widgets on the home screen, group/channel manager enhancements, channel numbering and sorting (that was previously always a pain), performance improvements
- Additional security, especially for installation of add-ons: By default third-party add-ons cannot overwrite existing libraries from already installed add-ons, Kodi's web interface is now by default password protected
Kodi 19.0 Operating System compatibility
The major change is that Kodi 19.0 cannot be installed on macOS 32bit anymore. However not many users should nowadays still use a 32-bit macOS anymore.
Besides this, Kodi can be installed on Windows, Linux, Android, Raspberry Pi, iOS (iPhone), macOS (64-bit) and new also to tvOS (Apple TV).
