Kodi 20 'Nexus' hits another major development milestone and is available to download now

Kodi 20 -- codename 'Nexus' -- is the next version of the popular home theater software. Builds for the successor to Kodi 19 'Matrix' were available to download for a while now, but as 'nightly' releases they weren't suitable for most users.

Two months ago, the developers rolled out the first Alpha build which, while stable, wasn't the best choice for people to use on a regular basis. Today, Kodi 20 hits another huge milestone, making it a more viable option.

SEE ALSO: Here's what's new and changed in Kodi 20 'Nexus' Alpha 1

Kodi 20 Alpha 2 has taken longer to arrive than expected because, as the developers explain, "We had a bit of a wild ride more due to behind the scenes update and changes -- however, the good news is that it's given us more time for fixes and additions."

So what's changed in this new release? Team Kodi lists the following highlights:

Platform Specific

• Android
  • Fix a stutter when the Kodi Android app was opened, closed and opened again. One of our team members (@thexai) noticed an issue with a recent PR that caused media stuttering to occur only after the app was opened and closed and reopened again without a force close. @ksooo has come up with a fix, so hopefully playback should be a better experience over Alpha 1.
  • Another TrueHD fix -- buffers reduced to a specific level to optimise data throughput -- Android: Adjust buffer size/duration for TrueHD IEC.
  • More local app icons should render fully in Kodi -- Android: CFileAndroidApp::ReadIcon: Add support for icons provided a....
  • Fix a packaging error for binary python modules (pycryptodome) - Android: packaging: don't delete cryptodome libraries from depends i....
• XBox
  • Fixes some specific H.265 video crashes -- XBox: DXVA2: Allows the use of more than 16 decoding surfaces for H265 Full HD or less.

Python

• Android and Apple systems have had their Python version bumped to 3.9.13 in accordance with the latest release of the CPython 3.9 series. Of note, there have been fixes by the CPython team specifically for issues raised by Kodi community members around some crashes. Thanks to those members raising the upstream issues, and the fantastic CPython team for fixing them. Please note, this does not affect any of our Windows releases, or if you are using Linux.

Filesystems

• Fix a regression that caused thumbnails to not appear when accessed from "remote" filesystems (e.g. WebDAV) -- fixed: URIUtils::IsInternetStream() didn't properly handle filesystem....

Closed Captions

• Fix an instance of Closed Captions not working. A forum member was able to provide an extremely helpful sample that allowed @enen92 to track down an issue with closed captions not working correctly. Incidentally, this also fixes Closed Captions for some Inputstream.Adaptive streams as confirmed by @CastagnaIT.

Subtitles

• Multiple WebVTT fixes
  • Subtitles: WebVTT: Fix X-TIMESTAMP-MAP LOCAL parsing.
  • Subtitles: WebVTT: Clear all overlays just before creating a new parser.
  • Subtitles: WevVTT: Sync cue timestamps with period start.

Bluray

• Fix BluRay resume issues -- Discs: Fix resume of Blurays and BluRay ISOs (state serializer).

Thumbnail Images

• Reduce "quality" of thumbnail creation -- FFmpegImage: Reduce quality a tiny bit NOTE: An advanced setting is available for those users who wish to alter the default further. More information can be found on the wiki.

Skinning

• A couple of skinning changes have been introduced. gui: info: Add VideoPlayer.Art(type) and positional variants and gui: info: Add Addon.Setting* infos.
• Skin timers -- skinning: Skin timer implementation.
• Removal of player.DisplayAfterSeek -- gui: info: Remove Player.DisplayAfterSeek.
• Skip border infill -- Adds GUI hint for skins to skip border infill.
• Moving speed -- gui: Implemented movingspeed to mover/resize controls.
• Diffuse fading animations -- Added diffuse fading animation effect .
• VideoPlayer.Art(type) and positional variants -- gui: info: Add VideoPlayer.Art(type) and positional variants.

Should you wish to try it out, go to the download page here and select your preferred platform (Windows, Linux, Android or Raspberry Pi). Click the 'Prerelease' tab at the top to download the new alpha.