Kodi 22 “Piers” released its Alpha 2, giving us a good picture of what we can expect from the next major version of the popular media center. Of course, as with any alpha release, this build is aimed primarily at testers and developers.
One of the most significant changes in Kodi 22 is the upgrade to FFmpeg 8, which underpins much of Kodi’s audio and video handling. This brings broader codec support and lays the groundwork for improved playback compatibility across modern media formats.
Alongside this, Kodi 22 adds native support for HEIF and HEIC image formats, which are increasingly common on modern smartphones and cameras. Video playback has also been refined, with fixes for streams containing very large numbers of audio, video, and subtitle tracks, improved audio channel handling, and more reliable forced subtitle selection.
On the library and media management side, Kodi 22 introduces a season plot field for TV shows and adds original language metadata for movies and series, improving how content is presented and organized. A bug from Alpha 1 that caused library scans to fail when local NFO files were present has been resolved, and video version importing has been improved to better handle multiple editions of the same title.
Moreover, Live TV and PVR users benefit from a focused fix addressing issues with Daylight Saving Time switching, a long-standing annoyance in some setups.
Weather support has also been improved, as the upcoming release will introduce a new Weather Skinning API, giving skin developers more flexibility, while the Home widget and Weather window receive a set of fixes and usability improvements.
Under the hood, Kodi 22 upgrades its embedded Python runtime to Python 3.13.7. Plus, the alpha also adds the ability to explicitly set available fan art, offering more control over visual presentation.
Several platform-specific improvements are already visible. On Windows, Kodi can now run multiple instances simultaneously, a notable change for advanced users and testing scenarios. Android users will see a new dialog explaining microphone permissions, improving transparency around system access.
On macOS, high background CPU usage has been fixed, addressing a common performance complaint. LG webOS devices receive multiple fixes and improvements related to the newer media pipeline, including corrections for overly bright subtitles and interface elements during HDR and Dolby Vision playback, as well as more reliable subtitle rendering.
Finally, once again, to say that this Alpha 2 is not intended for daily use. As a major version jump from Kodi 21 “Omega” to Kodi 22 “Piers,” regressions and incomplete features are expected at this stage.
For more information, visit the announcement.
