View source for Archive:Kodi v15 (Isengard) changelog

Kodi Wiki copy of the condensed changelog for the Kodi v15.x (Isengard) version releases with a summery of the most important core features and functions as well as other notable changes to key areas of the application software or its user interface.

== Changelog ==

=== Live TV and PVR (Personal Video Recorder) ===
* Added possibility to use multiple PVR clients for different PVR backends at the same time
* Improved PVR, EPG, and OSD frontend GUI in Kodi and extended the PVR API to support more features and functions
* Improved PVR API and database adding many new EPG and Channel properties
* Improved PVR / DVR timeshift support to pause Live TV (note that each PVR backend still need to support timeshifting)
* Improved PVR / EPG extensions and notifications support over the JSON-RPC API
* Improved Closed Captions (CC) support for Live TV
* Improved the "GlobalSearch" (service addon) function by adding EPG search support
* Added, updated, and improved PVR backend clients addons for all popular third-party external PVR recording software platforms:
** PVR|PVR Demo Client dummy addon with fake (method stub) backend for skin development and regression testing
** PVR/Backend/IPTV|IPTV (IPTV Simple Client) PVR Addon backend client maintained and available from Kodi's community
** Add-on:FilmOn PVR Client|FilmOn PVR Addon backend client maintained and available from Kodi's community
** Add-on:PCTV Systems Client|PCTV Systems (Broadway) PVR Addon backend client maintained and available from Kodi's community
** Add-on:Stalker Client|Stalker Middleware PVR Addon backend client maintained and available from Kodi's community
** Add-on:VBox TV Gateway PVR Client|VBox TV Gateway PVR Addon backend client maintained and available from Kodi's community
** Tvheadend|Tvheadend PVR Addon backend client maintained and available from Kodi's community
** NextPVR|NextPVR (former GB-PVR) PVR Addon backend client maintained and available from Kodi's community
** Njoy|Njoy Digital (N7) PVR Addon backend client maintained and available from Kodi's community
** MediaPortal_TV-Server|MediaPortal PVR Addon backend client maintained and available from Kodi's community
** MythTV_PVR|MythTV PVR Addon backend client maintained and available from the Kodi's community
** VDR|VDR (Video Disk Recorder) PVR Addon backend client maintained and available from Kodi's community
** Enigma2|Enigma2 (Dreambox / Vu+ / DBox2) PVR Addon backend client maintained and available from Kodi's community
** Argus_TV|Argus TV / ForTheRecord PVR Addon backend client maintained and available from Kodi's community
** Add-on:PVR.WMC|WMC (Windows Media Center) PVR Addon backend client maintained and available from Kodi's community
** DVBLink PVR Addon backend client maintained and available from Kodi's community
** DVBViewer|DVBViewer PVR Addon backend client maintained and available from Kodi's community
* Removed internal MythTV VFS client code in favour of its external PVR Client Addons
* Removed internal VDR (VTP) VFS client code in favour of its external PVR Client Addons
* Removed internal Tvheadend (HTSP) VFS client code in favour of its external PVR Client Addons
* Removed internal TuxBox (Dreambox/DBox2/Vu+/Enigma1/2) VFS client code in favor of external PVR Client Addons
* Removed internal ReplayTV (DirectTV) VFS client code since its old and was no longer being maintained by anyone
* Removed internal SlingBox VFS client code since its old and is no longer being maintained by anyone

=== Add-ons Framework, API, and Manager ===
For full changelogs of all Addons APIs, see Isengard API changes, [http://forum.kodi.tv/forumdisplay.php?fid=174 JSON-RPC], and [http://forum.kodi.tv/forumdisplay.php?fid=26 Add-ons] Development Forums
* Improved Addon Manager frontend GUI in Kodi, adding support for categorization, new manager layout and more
* Added initial integration for binary addons support and changing the Kodi build system around it
* Added framework support for binary addons for audio decoder and audio encoder codecs
* Extend Addons API to support binary addons for audio decoder and audio encoder codecs
* Added support for context-menu addons for skinners and addon developers
* Added option for addons scripts to check status of DPMS energy saving functions of underlying OS
* Improved the ability to [http://github.com/xbmc/xbmc/pull/901 extend Kodi's native Python API by writing C++ code generated] via [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Groovy_%28programming_language%29 Groovy] and [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Groovy_%28programming_language%29 SWIG]
* Improved Addons API for homebrew DIY RGB LED Ambient lighting (Ambilight clone) client software such as Add-on:XBMC Boblight|Boblight
* Improved addon management at Kodi version upgrade by immediately fetch updates from repository after upgrade

=== GUI Engine (Skinning Engine) ===
For full changelog on changes to the skinning engine, see Isengard API changes and the [http://forum.kodi.tv/showthread.php?tid=211896 Skin Development Forum]
* Added support for context-menu addons for skinners and addon developers
* Added support Sound Addons for skins instead of including sound files within each skin.
* Improved PVR / EPG / Live TV and context menus interfaces in Kodi's GUI skinning engine (already used in Confluence)
* Added support for Language Addons, moving internal Language translation files into external Language Addons
* Added an accessibility settings section to provide one configuration area for the visually and hearing impaired
* Added further optimizations to Kodi's GUI engine for faster rendering on low resource embedded devices
* Added new icon types and missing icons to Confluence
* Added PVR and EPG support to the Re-Touched (touchscreen friendly) skin
* Improved HOW-TO:Modify_dirty_regions|Dirty Regions rendering on all platforms
* Improved Stereoscopic 3D rendering support (Side-by-Side, Top-Bottom, and Anaglyph) to Kodi's GUI skinning engine
* Improved Stereoscopic 3D rendering support (Side-by-Side, Top-Bottom, and Anaglyph) for Subtitles when in 3D mode
* Improved navigation of video audio tracks and subtitle selection lists
* Improved touch and gesture support for all platforms, and also improved the default touch screen skin (Add-on:Re-Touched|Re-Touched)
* Improved and expanded the internationalization options and regional configuration settings in the GUI
* Improved GUI settings configuration levels for Basic, Standard, Advanced, Expert (defaults to "Standard")
* Improved selection when installing new skins 
* Update the default bold and regular Roboto TTF fonts from Google 
* Updated keyboard layout for many languages
* Restructured settings windows and descriptions for almost every setting and configuration
* Removed legacy code to backwards compatibility for skins made pre-Frodo (XBMC 11.0)

=== Platform Independent Playback ===
* Added adaptive skipping/seeking through audio and video playback, also known as "skip steps"
* Improved support for H.264 (including Hi10P) multi-threaded video decoding when software decoder on CPU is used
* Improved Stereoscopic 3D playback with video playlist switching when playlists have 2D and 3D videos
* Added support for MK3D (Matroska 3D) video extensions and enable double cache by default on these videos
* Added a Chapter Selector Window with visual thumbnails shows thumbs on where to skip to in video
* Added support for Closed Captions (CC) in CEA-608 and CEA-708 formats (ATSC Closed Caption)
* Added support for external subtitles over UPnP / DNLA through the settings section
* Upgraded FFmpeg (libavcodec and libavformat) libraries to release version [http://www.ffmpeg.org/download.html#release_2.6.4 FFmpeg 2.6.x]
* Remove certain audio codecs from core and made them into audio decoder and audio encoder add-ons
* Disabled hardware video decoding of MPEG-2 videos with Standard Definition resolution by default

=== Library ===
* Added support for [[Music_nodes]] that can defined views that are used to organize your media from the music menu
* Added support for marking as watched during other library operations like  “update library” when scanning sources
* Added support for allowing different sort orders for different sort methods
* Added ability to jump to first unwatched episode in TV section by default
* Added support to rescrape season art for newly added seasons
* Improved MusicBrainz tags support to the Music Library and Database
* Improved and extended [[Smart playlists|Smart Playlists]] functionality
* Improved performance for SQL database queries for faster library browsing

=== Web Scrapers ===
* Updated music, movies, tv shows, and music video scrapers for Kodi

=== AudioEngine ===
* Improved the default cross-platform event driven active state machine pattern AudioEngine#ActiveAE|ActiveAE (Kodi's AudioEngine)
* Improved ALSA sink for AudioEngine#ActiveAE|ActiveAE for Linux Desktop and generic Linux based Embedded Systems
* Improved PulseAudio sink for AudioEngine#ActiveAE|ActiveAE for Linux Desktop
* Improved OSS (Open Sound System) sink for AudioEngine#ActiveAE|ActiveAE for BSD, like FreeBSD and similar BSD Unix based systems
* Improved AUDIOTRACK sink for AudioEngine#ActiveAE|ActiveAE for Amlogic
* Improved Pi Audio sink for AudioEngine#ActiveAE|ActiveAE for Raspberry Pi
* Improved DirectSound sink for AudioEngine#ActiveAE|ActiveAE for Windows
* Improved WASAPI sink for AudioEngine#ActiveAE|ActiveAE for Windows
* Improved CoreAudio sink for AudioEngine#ActiveAE|ActiveAE for (Mac) OS X and iOS
* Improved Darwin sink for AudioEngine#ActiveAE|ActiveAE for (Mac) OS X and iOS

=== Other ===
* Added new audio visualization addons (only OpenGL versions for Linux and OS X for now)?
* Improved display of CPU / GPU frequency and temperature for all supported platforms
* Improved keymap for music playback, as while in full screen pressing select/ok button will now show the OSD
* Added support for [[wikipedia:WSGI|WSGI (Web Server Gateway Interface) to extend the Python Script support in Kodi's integrated webserver
* Added support for JSONP for JSON-RPC requests to Kodi's integrated webserver
* Added support for image resizing to Kodi's integrated webserver
* Improved webserver caching control
* Improved the JSON-RPC API
* Improved the the integrated UPnP Media Server and Client
* Changed Kodi application code base to C++11
* Improved CEC|HDMI CEC (Consumer Electronics Control) support for [http://libcec.pulse-eight.com/ Pulse-Eight's LibCEC]
* Upgraded HDMI-CEC libraries code from Pulse-Eight to [http://raw.githubusercontent.com/Pulse-Eight/libcec/master/ChangeLog LibCEC release version 3.0.0]
* Upgraded DVD-Video navigation and playback libraries (libdvdnav, libdvdread, and libdvdcss)
* Upgraded SAMBA client code library to version 3.6.12 for improved support for SMB/CIFS protocol
* Updated community maintained translations to over 60+ languages to date for Kodi via Translation System|Transifex Translation System
* Removed internal DAAP VFS client code for iIunes 6.x music shares (network stream from older Apple iTunes)
* Removal AFP filesystem support from Kodi's VFS (Virtual File System)
* Improved code stability and performance as well as general code clean-up in all areas

=== Android Specific ===
* Improved MediaCodec API video decoding implementations support for Android 4.2 (API level 17) and later
* Improved the dedicated AMLCodec hardware accelerated video decoding support for Amlogic devices
* Added automatic refresh rate switching support for video playback on Android 5.0 and later (>= API 21), including Android TV<ref>http://github.com/anssih/xbmc/commits/android/refreshrate_wip WIP refreshrate</ref>
* Added support for HEVC hardware decoding for MediaCodec API in Android 4.4.2 and later when the VPU supports it
* Added support for HEVC hardware decoding on Amlogic SoCs in Android 4.4.2 and later when the VPU supports it
* Added support for UltraHD decoding / 4K resolution output on Amlogic SoCs in Android when HW supports it
* Added support for screenshot and video bookmarks on Amlogic SoCs hardware
* Added support for LCD/VFD display panel output on Amlogic SoCs hardware
* Added support for de-interlacing using BOB deinterlace method on Android
* Added support for 7.1 channels PCM playback
* Added support for system handling of audio volume on Android
* Moved to Android API 17 as minimum with SDK 14 and NDK 10e, meaning at least Android 4.2 is now required
* Improved [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ARM_architecture#Advanced_SIMD_.28NEON.29 NEON (Advanced SIMD instruction set)] CPU acceleration support for ARM architecture
* Removed the dependency for root/SU access permission rights on Android

=== BSD Specific ===
* Improved Kodi support for [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Berkeley_Software_Distribution BSD (operating system)] on FreeBSD, PC-BSD, and other similar BSD platforms

=== Linux Specific ===
* Added MIPS processor architecture support for Linux (Imagination Technologies MIPS Creator CI20 as reference)
* Added support for HEVC hardware video decoding on Amlogic SoCs when the VPU supports it
* Added support for UltraHD decoding / 4K resolution output on Amlogic SoCs in Android when HW supports it
* Added support for screenshot and video bookmarks on Amlogic SoCs hardware
* Added support for LCD/VFD display panel output on Amlogic SoCs hardware
* Improved video accelerated decoding on Freescale i.MX 6 based devices
* Improved ARM processor architecture (using WeTek Play and [[Raspberry Pi]] as reference devices)
* Improved OpenGL ES and EGL support (using WeTek Play and [[Raspberry Pi]] as reference devices)
* Improved VAAPI (Video Acceleration API) support (requires VAAPI compatible hardware and drivers)
* Improved VDPAU (NVIDIA) Hardware Video Acceleration (requires VDPAU compatible hardware and drivers)
* Improved XvBA (AMD/ATI) Hardware Video Acceleration (requires XvBA compatible hardware and drivers)
* Improved OpenMAX Video Acceleration API support for Linux (using Raspberry Pi as reference hardware)
* Improved dedicated AMLCodec hardware accelerated video decoding support for Linux on Amlogic devices
* Improved AMD/Intel x86-64 64-bit (AMD64 / IA-64t CPU architectures) support under Linux
* Removed dependencies of SDL (Simple DirectMedia Layer) for everything but hardware abstraction for input devices

=== iOS Specific ===
* Improve Apple VDADecoder Video Acceleration support for iOS (on iPad, iPhone, and iPod iDevices)
* Moved to iOS 8.1 SDK, minimum iOS 5.1 is now required, this removes support for Apple TV 2 builds

=== OS X Specific ===
* Improve Apple VDADecoder Video Acceleration support for (Mac) OS X
* Added Kodi support for OS X 10.10 "Yosemite" from Apple
* Moved to OS X 10.10 SDK, meaning minimum (Mac) OS X 10.7 Lion is now required, and no more 32-bit builds

=== Windows Specific ===
* Improved DXVA/DXVA2 (DirectX Video Acceleration) support (requires DXVA/DXVA2 compatible hardware and drivers)
* Added support for HEVC hardware video decoding via DXVA on Windows when hardware and driver supports exist

== References ==
<references/>

[[Category:Releases|Isengard]]