Fifteen months after its previous major 20 ‘Nexus’ release, Kodi, the popular free and open-source media player software, has officially released its 21.0 version, ‘Omega.’
This new version introduces many enhancements and features to improve the user experience across various platforms, including macOS, Windows, and Android.
Significant improvements have been made to Kodi’s GUI rendering engine, which now better supports HiDPI (retina) displays, ensuring crisper and more detailed visuals on high-resolution screens. macOS users, in particular, will benefit from enhanced support for fullscreen mode and improved display handling.
Another standout feature of Kodi 21.0 ‘Omega’ is the addition of speech recognition and microphone usage for macOS and iOS platforms. This new capability enhances the software’s accessibility, allowing users to interact with Kodi using voice commands.
For subtitle enthusiasts, Kodi 21.0 ‘Omega’ brings a notable improvement by avoiding calls to virtual methods on the destructor, which enhances the reliability and performance of subtitle handling.
Audio enhancements include significant improvements to the Audio sink component on webOS platforms, offering users a more seamless audio experience on LG Smart TVs.
Developers will appreciate adding new build steps and dependencies updates, including a major update to the libmicrohttpd library and the integration of FlatBuffers, which facilitates efficient cross-platform data serialization.
Windows users are in for a treat with the addition of the DXVA Video Super Resolution upscaler, which enhances video quality on supported hardware. Additionally, the Windows platform sees improvements in DXVA handling, including better support for HDR10 color spaces and high-precision processing for HDR tone mapping.
Moreover, the Kodi team has also improved the software’s internationalization with significant translation updates.
A notable quality-of-life improvement is the handling of remote control and keyboard inputs. Enhanced support for Page Up/Down/Home/End keys in settings makes navigation through Kodi’s extensive settings menu more intuitive.
Lastly, the new version continues Kodi’s tradition of robust platform support. Updates to the build process for Apple platforms using Xcode 14.2 ensure compatibility with the latest macOS and iOS versions.
If you’re an Ubuntu user, remember that, as we informed you last month, Kodi is retiring its PPA repository and moving towards the Flatpak distribution format. Because of this, you won’t find 21.0 ‘Omega’ there.
Check out the project’s download section to get Kodi for your hardware. For more about all the novelties in the new version, refer to the release announcement or view the full changelog.
