Kodi 19 Matrix is the latest version of Kodi. It was released on February 20, 2021, and replaces Kodi 18 Leia. In this article, we will review all the major changes in this release, so you will know what to expect and how to get the most out of this new exciting release.
Currently, some of the add-ons still don’t work on Kodi 19, but over time all the popular add-ons will be converted to Python 3 and work on the new version. We have an updated list of the add-ons that are Kodi 19 compatible here.
If you want to return to the previous version of Kodi, do the following: uninstall Kodi 19 and install Kodi 18.9 from here. If you have an Android device, make sure to disable automatic updates.
Here you can find what’s new in Kodi 19:
Here are the major changes in Kodi 19 sorted by categories.
Video
- Support for the AV1 codec. This open-source codec is optimized for video transmissions over the Internet. It has 30% better compression versus the H.265 codec, which makes it highly popular for online streaming
- HLG HDR and static HDR10 playback on Windows 10
- Static HDR10 and dynamic Dolby Vision HDR support on Android
- More OpenGL bicubic scalers
Audio/Music
- Library improvements
- Improved handling of multi-disc CD sets and box sets
- Additional metadata tags and displays
- Improved handling of album release dates and album durations
- New setting to open music fullscreen/visualization window automatically when playback is started
- New music visualization
- Grouping videos by artist and not just by album
- Support for .NFO files that list all performers instead of just the main artist
- Display related album and artist information from the music library, where appropriate
- Better search links to return related albums and videos by the same director
Subtitles
- Subtitle opacity can be changed
- Color and background color for subtitles can be changed
- Fix to timestamp overlays
PVR and live TV
- PVR reminders
- Home screen widgets
- Group/channel manager enhancements
- New/Live/Finale/Premiere tags
- Channel numbering and sorting
- Performance improvements
Interface
- Screen redesign, especially for music
- New metadata displays
- Changes to playlist views
- A new “now playing” view
- Artwork and image file improvements
- Both new and updated GUI controls
Add-ons and scrappers
- Add-ons must be built in Python 3. Old add-ons built in Python 2 must be converted to Python 3
- Kodi will enforce the origin of installed add-ons and their dependencies. This policy was implemented to prevent third-party repositories from overwriting code of unrelated add-ons, which was the cause of numerous errors in the past
- New Python scrapers for TV shows, movies and music, including generic album scraper and generic artist scraper
Platform-specific
- Support for tvOS
- iOS 32-bit is no longer be supported
- iOS supports game controllers (Xbox/PlayStation/other supported Bluetooth controllers)
- Top Shelf support and fixes on AppleTV
- Better logging and notch support on iOS
- Move to a single Linux binary for multiple windowing systems (X11, Wayland, and GBM)
Other changes
- Implemented integer scaling to improve the viewing quality of Pixel Art games for all platforms
- Improved information around the security implications of enabling external interfaces
- Added default-on switch to require a password for the web interface
Now is time for you to try this release and enjoy the new features and improvements.