The Kodi team has launched Kodi 22 "Piers" Alpha 3, the tirth pre-release build of the software’s upcoming generation. This latest iteration offers an early look at new features for the widely-used media center and content management platform.
Changelog:
Release highlights:
- Added support for taglines in TV shows
- Added support for H264 AVCC subtitles
- Added support for full IANA language tags
- Added JSON RPC methods "Player.GetChapters" and "Player.OnPropertyChanged"
- Upgraded FFmpeg to v8.0.1
- Upgraded Python to v3.14.3
- Changed MySQL/MariaDB charset to utf8mb4 and collation to general_ci (case insensitive)
Video:
- Improved Blu-ray support for both menus and playback
- Improved TV show episode handling for blu-ray
- Improved changing chapters in movies
- Improved seeking during tempo change
Audio:
- Changed default samplerate from 44.1kHz to 48kHz
- Fixed missing 200ms of audio at the start of video playback
- Fixed occasional missing audio when changing playback speed
- Fixed AC3 audio duration being incorrect for non-48KHz content
- Improved handling of low-latency audio
Subtitles:
- Fixed handling of WebVTT (ISOBMFF) subtitles
- Fixed PGS/VobSub subtitle selection for foreign audio tracks
- Fixed crash when handling some BCP47 language tags added in Alpha 2
Library:
- Improved tagline handling for movies and TV shows
Games:
- Added N64 support using software rendering
- Improved shader support
- Fixed Black screen for games with unaligned textures
- Fixed crash when changing resolution
Streaming and network:
- Fixed playback of tcp:// streams
- Fixed media info display for strm:// streams
- Fixed occasional errors resuming UPnP playback
Stacks and compressed archives:
- Added support for folder stacks, useful for DVD/Bluray folders
- Improved playback of folder stacks
- Improved handling media inside compressed archives
- Fixed handling of zip files greater than 4GB
Profiles:
- Improved creating profiles in custom folders
- Fixed deadlock when viewing Weather with multiple profiles
- Highlighted current profile in profile selection dialog
Platforms
Android:
- Fixed Auto Frame Rate (AFR) when resuming from standby
- Improved handling of Dolby Vision L5 metadata
- Improved handling of foreign subtitles
webOS Video:
- General improvements for Dolby Vision support
- Improved handling of Dolby Vision L5 metadata
- Fixed tempo control
webOS Audio:
- Improved audio passthrough support
- Improved volume handling in non-passthrough mode
- Improved Dolby Digital audio when using eARC
- Fixed AAC playback on some older versions of webOS
Windows:
- Added front-to-back rendering
- Changed default audio output to XAUDIO and WASAPI
- Fixed Kodi unable to run on Windows 8.1
Linux:
- Improved power management for systems without logind
- Extended range of keyboard keys and remote buttons
- Fixed long-pressing keyboard keys on Wayland
FreeBSD:
- Extract to disk instead of RAM for large compressed archives
A little love for developers and security researchers
- (For researchers) Dropped some unused code that kept tripping CVEs
- (For developers) New KodiAI app on GitHub
- (For developers) Added support for Visual Studio 2026
- (For developers) Improved compatibility with C++23
- (For developers) Added meson support for building dependencies
Known Issues
- Kodi is incompatible with MySQL 9.6 ('sets' is now a reserved keyword). A fix will be devised for the next v22 prerelease.
- Blu-ray stream details aren't saved in the library
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