QuoteHere it is, the first beta build for Kodi 15.0; freshly baked and ready to be served! We could call Kodi 15.0 a “clean-up” edition due to the lack of any prominent features and due to the massive spring cleaning we have been doing during the past months. Although some nice new features have been added, the majority of work was done cleaning up the vast complexity of code that was built up over the years. Though we still have a long way to go.
QuoteSome of you might feel that we are releasing the new beta quite soon after the 14.2 stable release, however this is part of our plan. We intend to release more often with smaller features. This way the changes are more manageable and we can quicker squash any bugs that get left behind into next release.
QuoteLet’s talk about what we’ve done.
Improvements so far
QuoteThere were about 780 requests that contained multiple fixes, features, and improvements that went into the current 15.0 beta release. All these changes should sum up in an even better user experience while using Kodi. We could start summing up all the changes but there’s really no point in doing so. Instead will make a quick selection of the most important changes done.
QuoteDisplay More* Reworked add-on manger that should give a better overview
* Chapter selection window that shows thumbs on where to skip to in the video
* Easier to navigate audio and subtitle selection list
* Addition of language add-ons which allow us to update the User-Interface text outside of regular releases
* Expansion of international options like time and date format, temperature and speed units.
* Skip steps (step forward & backwards) improvements.
* Tuxbox removal. Users of Enigma2 boxes can use the VUPlus PVR add-on
* Split PVR add-ons into separate projects which should allow updates through repo in the future
* Fix season art scraping on newly added seasons
* Immediately fetch updates from repository after Kodi version upgrade
* Improvement of installing new skins selection
* Remove legacy code pre-Frodo 11.0
* Add jump to first unwatched in TV section
* Remove certain codecs from our core code and made add-ons out of them. Audio encoders/decoders
* Removal of AFP filesystem support
* Windows DXVA HEVC hardware decoding support if driver and hardware support exist
* Added adaptive seeking through audio and video playback, also know as “skip steps”
* Android HEVC H.265 support for some chipsets
* Improve webserver caching control
* External subtitles over UPnP can be enabled through the settings section
* Allow scanning of new sources and marking as watched during other library operations such as “update library”
* Allow different sort orders for different sort methods
* Start of integration binary add-ons and changing the build system around it
* Improved CC (Closed Captions) support for Live TV
* ffmpeg 2.6.2 update
* Removal remaining SDL code which was used in some areas.
* Changed code to C++11
* Variety of memleaks, segfaults, crashes and minor issues fixed
* Rescrape season art for newly added seasons
* Upgrade included webserver which should fix issues with remotes loosing connections
* On Android the system now handles the volume
* General improvements regarding code stability and performance in all areas
* General code clean-up in all areas to simplify adding future features
