Features and supported formats: Difference between revisions

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<section begin="intro" />Currently '''[[XBMC]]''' can be used to play almost all popular audio and video formats around. It was designed for network playback, so you can stream your multimedia from anywhere in the house or directly from the internet using practically any protocol available. Use your media as-is: XBMC can play CDs and DVDs directly from the disk or image file, almost all popular archive formats from your hard drive. XBMC will [[adding videos to the library|scan all of your media and create a personalized library]] complete with boxcovers, descriptions, and fanart. There are playlist and slideshow functions, a weather forecast feature and many audio visualizations. Once installed, your computer will become a fully functional multimedia jukebox.<section end="intro" />
<section begin="intro" />'''[[Kodi|{{kodi}}]]''' can be used to play almost all popular audio and video formats around. It was designed for network playback, so you can stream your multimedia from anywhere in the house or directly from the internet using practically any protocol available. Use your media as-is: Kodi can play CDs and DVDs directly from the disk or image file, almost all popular archive formats from your hard drive. Kodi will [[adding videos to the library|scan all of your media and create a personalized library]] complete with boxcovers, descriptions, and fanart. There are playlist and slideshow functions, a weather forecast feature and many audio visualizations. Once installed, your computer will become a fully functional multimedia jukebox.<section end="intro" />


===XBMC's Addons Manager and addons===
=== KODI's Add-ons Manager and add-ons ===
{{#lst:Add-ons|intro}}
{{#lst:Add-ons|intro}}


====Scrapers (web scraping for metadata)====
==== Scrapers (web scraping for metadata) ====
XBMC has the built-in optional function to automatically download metadata information, cover art and other related media artwork online through its web scrapers that looks for media in the user's audio / video folders and their sub-directories. These "scrapers" are this way used as importers to obtain detailed information from various Internet resources about movies and television shows. It can get synopses, reviews, movie posters, titles, genre classification, and other similar data. XBMC GUI then provide a rich display for audio and video files that the scrapers has identified.
XBMC/Kodi has the built-in optional function to automatically download metadata information, cover art and other related media artwork online through its web scrapers that looks for media in the user's audio / video folders and their sub-directories. These "scrapers" are this way used as importers to obtain detailed information from various Internet resources about movies and television shows. It can get synopses, reviews, movie posters, titles, genre classification, and other similar data. XBMC/Kodi GUI then provide a rich display for audio and video files that the scrapers has identified.


Scrapers use sites like themoviedb.org to obtain thumbnails and information on movies, thetvdb.com for TV show posters and episode plots, or CDDB (via freedb and Discogs, etc.) for audio CD track listings.
Scrapers use sites like themoviedb.org to obtain thumbnails and information on movies, thetvdb.com for TV show posters and episode plots, or CDDB (via freedb and Discogs, etc.) for audio CD track listings.


====Skins (themes)====
==== Skins (themes) ====
Same as the majority of most applications that originated from a '[[homebrew (video games)|homebrew]]' scene, is [[skin (computing)|skin]]-ability in the tradition of modifications and customization very popular among XBMC users. "Confluence" and "Project Mayhem" are the two official [[skin (computing)|skin]]s; "Confluence" is the default since version 9.11, and "Project Mayhem" was the previous default which is now in its third version, commonly known as "PM3.HD" (''PM III High-Definition'').<ref>XBMC V12 makes your open source home theatre look shinier"</ref>
Skins allow users to drastically change the appearance and fundamental user interface of XBMC/Kodi. "Confluence" and "Project Mayhem" are the two official skins; "Confluence" is the default since version 9.11, and "Project Mayhem" was the previous default which is now in its third version, commonly known as "PM3.HD" (PM III High-Definition).


Users can also create their own skin (or simply modify an existing skin) and share it with others via public websites that are used for XBMC skins trading and development.<ref>XBMC is the best media center application. Period.</ref><ref>Passion XBMC</ref><ref>[http://sourceforge.net/projects/xboxmediacenter XBMC Skinning Project Sourceforge.net]</ref><ref>[http://blackmarket.ictcsc.net XBMC Black Market]</ref><ref>[http://www.teamrazorfish.co.uk teamrazorfish MediaStream]</ref><ref>blackbolt.x-scene.com">[http://blackbolt.x-scene.com Team Blackbolt]</ref> Many such third-party skins exist that are well maintained by the community, and while some skins are originals with unique designs, most initially begin as a [[clone (video games)|clones]] or an exact [[replica]] of other multimedia software interfaces, such as DivX Connected, [[Apple Front Row]], [[Windows XP Media Center Edition|Windows Media Center Edition (MCE)]], [[MediaPortal]], [[Meedio]]/MeediOS, HDeeTV, [[Kaleidescape]], [[Wii Menu|Wii Channel Menu (Xii)]], [[Xbox360#Software|Xbox 360 Blades (MC360)]], [[Xbox360#Software|Xbox 360 New Xbox Experience (Xperience)]], and others.<ref>Customize XBMC with These Five Awesome Skins"</ref>
Users can also create their own skin (or simply modify an existing skin) and share it with others via public websites that are used for XBMC/Kodi skins trading and development. Many such third-party skins exist that are well maintained by the community, and while some skins are originals with unique designs, most initially begin as a clones or an exact replica of other multimedia software interfaces, such as DivX Connected, Apple Front Row, Windows Media Center Edition (MCE), MediaPortal, Meedio/MeediOS, HDeeTV, Kaleidescape, Wii Channel Menu (Xii), Xbox 360 Blades (MC360), Xbox 360 New Xbox Experience (Xperience), and others.


The flexibility offered by XBMC skinning-engine is also useful for third-party companies who wish to make derivative work of XBMC as it makes it easy to rebrand the environment or make deeper changes to the look and feel of the user interface.
The flexibility offered by the XBMC/Kodi skinning-engine is also useful for third-party companies who wish to make derivative work of Kodi as it makes it easy to rebrand the environment or make deeper changes to the look and feel of the user interface.


====Web Interfaces====
==== Web Interfaces ====
Web Interface addons for XBMC normally allow browsing a media library remotely, to handle music playlists from a computer instead of television. Others allow remotely controlling the navigation of XBMC like a remote for [[Touchscreen remote control|remote controlling]] of an installed and concurrently-active XBMC session running on a computer if it runs on an internet tablet or similar device with a touch interface. And yet other still acts like a media manager to allow modifying metadata and artwork in XBMC's video and music libraries.
Web Interface addons for Kodi normally allow browsing a media library remotely, to handle music playlists from a computer instead of television. Others allow remotely controlling the navigation of Kodi like a remote for remote controlling of an installed and concurrently-active Kodi session running on a computer if it runs on an internet tablet or similar device with a touch interface. And yet other still acts like a media manager to allow modifying metadata and artwork in XBMC's video and music libraries.


===Audio, video, and pictures playback and handling===
=== Live TV with EPG and PVR / DVR frontend ===
XBMC can play media from CD/DVD media using an internal DVD-ROM drive. It can also play media from an internal built-in hard disk drive and SMB/SAMBA/CIFS shares (Windows File-Sharing), NFS, WebDAV or UPnP (Universal Plug and Play) shares. XBMC can also take advantage of a broadband Internet connection if available to stream Internet-video-streams like YouTube, Hulu, Netflix, and Veoh, and play Internet-radio-stations (such as Pandora Radio). XBMC also includes the option to submit music usage statistics to Last.fm and Libre.fm. It also has music/video-playlist features, picture/image-slideshow functions, an MP3+CDG karaoke function and many audio-visualizations and screensavers. XBMC can in addition upscale/upconvert all standard-definition (480i/480p/576i/576p) resolution videos and output them to 720p, 1080i, and 1080p high-definition resolutions.
From version 12 (Frodo) {{Kodi}} has a native Live TV with EPG (Electronic Program Guide) and DVR (Digital Video Recorder) features with a unified PVR (Personal Video Recorder) frontend GUI, enabling control of television video capture and playback to and from a hard disk drive with PVR Client Addons for most popular PVR backends (TV tuner card server) that can be installed separately as addons inside {{Kodi}.


====Format support====
PVR backend can either be networked DVR set-top box appliance hardware or PC-based digital video recorder software which can run on the same computer or other computers on the same network. PVR backend software and hardware is available which can turn personal computers running Microsoft Windows, Linux, and OS X into PVR/DVR backends.
XBMC can be used to play/view all common multimedia formats through its native clients and parsers. It can decode these audio and video formats in software or hardware, and optionally pass-through AC3/DTS audio, or encode to AC3 in real time from movies directly to S/PDIF digital output to an external audio-amplifier/receiver for decoding.
 
PVR Client Addons are available for many PVR backend software and hardware such as Argus TV, DVBViewer, ForTheRecord, Tvheadend, MediaPortal, MythTV, NextPVR (formerly GB-PVR), VDR, WMC (Windows Media Center), and Enigma2-based DVR set-top boxes such as Dreambox and Vu+, as well as PVR Client Addons for direct LAN connection to Network Attached TV-Tuners such as Silicon Dust HDHomeRun and Njoy Digital AnySee N7 DVB-S2 network-tuners.
 
=== Audio, video, and pictures playback and handling ===
XBMC/Kodi can play media from CD/DVD media using an internal DVD-ROM drive or Blu-ray Discs (unencrypted). It can also play media from an internal built-in hard disk drive and SMB/SAMBA/CIFS shares (Windows File-Sharing), NFS, WebDAV or UPnP (Universal Plug and Play) shares. XBMC/Kodi can also take advantage of a broadband Internet connection if available to stream Internet-video-streams like YouTube, Hulu, Netflix, and Veoh, and play Internet-radio-stations (such as Pandora Radio). XBMC/Kodi also includes the option to submit music usage statistics to Last.fm and Libre.fm. It also has music/video-playlist features, picture/image-slideshow functions, an MP3+CDG karaoke function and many audio-visualizations and screensavers. XBMC/Kodi can in addition upscale/upconvert all standard-definition (480i/480p/576i/576p) resolution videos and output them to 720p, 1080i, and 1080p high-definition resolutions.
 
==== Format support ====
XBMC/Kodi can be used to play/view all common multimedia formats through its native clients and parsers. It can decode these audio and video formats in software or hardware, and optionally pass-through AC3/DTS/HD audio, or encode to AC3 in real time from movies directly to S/PDIF digital output to an external audio-amplifier/receiver for decoding.


;Supported formats
;Supported formats
*'''Physical digital media:''' Blu-ray Disc (unencrypted), CDs, DVDs, DVD-Video, Video CDs (including VCD/SVCD/XVCD), Audio-CD (CDDA), USB Flash Drives, and local Hard Disk Drives
* '''Physical digital media:''' Blu-ray Disc (unencrypted), CDs, DVDs, DVD-Video, Video CDs (including VCD/SVCD/XVCD), Audio-CD (CDDA), USB Flash Drives, and local Hard Disk Drives
*'''Network protocol clients:''' AirPlay/AirTunes, UPnP, SMB/SAMBA/CIFS, AFP, Zeroconf/Avahi/Bonjour, NFS, HTTP, HTTPS, FTP, RTSP (RTSPU, RTSPT), MMS (MMSU, MMST), Podcasting, TCP, UDP, SFTP, RTP and RTMP (including RTMP, RTMPT, RTMPE, RTMPTE, RTMPS), DHCP, NTP, WebDAV
* '''Network protocol clients:''' AirPlay/AirTunes, UPnP, SMB/SAMBA/CIFS, AFP, Zeroconf/Avahi/Bonjour, NFS, HTTP, HTTPS, FTP, RTSP (RTSPU, RTSPT), MMS (MMSU, MMST), Podcasting, TCP, UDP, SFTP, RTP and RTMP (including RTMP, RTMPT, RTMPE, RTMPTE, RTMPS), DHCP, NTP, WebDAV
Network protocol servers: JSON-RPC server, D-Bus server, Web server, FTP Server, and UPnP AV media server, and a multi-protocol Event Server
Network protocol servers: JSON-RPC server, D-Bus server, Web server, FTP Server, and UPnP AV media server, and a multi-protocol Event Server
*'''Container formats:''' AVI, MPEG, WMV, ASF, FLV, MKV/MKA (Matroska), QuickTime, MP4, M4A, AAC, NUT, Ogg, OGM, RealMedia RAM/RM/RV/RA/RMVB, 3gp, VIVO, PVA, NUV, NSV, NSA, FLI, FLC, DVR-MS and WTV
* '''Container formats:''' AVI, MPEG, WMV, ASF, FLV, MKV/MKA (Matroska), QuickTime, MP4, M4A, AAC, NUT, Ogg, OGM, RealMedia RAM/RM/RV/RA/RMVB, 3gp, VIVO, PVA, NUV, NSV, NSA, FLI, FLC, DVR-MS, WTV, TRP and F4V.
*'''Video formats:''' MPEG-1, MPEG-2, H.263, MPEG-4 SP and ASP, MPEG-4 AVC (H.264), HuffYUV, Indeo, MJPEG, RealVideo, RMVB, Sorenson, WMV, Cinepak.
* '''Video formats:''' MPEG-1, MPEG-2, H.263, MPEG-4 SP and ASP, MPEG-4 AVC (H.264), H.265 (as from Kodi 14) HuffYUV, Indeo, MJPEG, RealVideo, RMVB, Sorenson, WMV, Cinepak.
*'''Audio formats:''' MIDI, AIFF, WAV/WAVE, AIFF, MP2, MP3, AAC, AACplus (AAC+), Vorbis, AC3, DTS, ALAC, AMR, FLAC, Monkey's Audio (APE), RealAudio, SHN, WavPack, MPC/Musepack/Mpeg+, Shorten, Speex, WMA, IT, S3M, MOD (Amiga Module), XM, NSF (NES Sound Format), SPC (SNES), GYM (Genesis), SID (Commodore 64), Adlib, YM (Atari ST), ADPCM (Nintendo GameCube), and CDDA.
* '''Audio formats:''' MIDI, AIFF, WAV/WAVE, AIFF, MP2, MP3, AAC, AACplus (AAC+), Vorbis, AC3, DTS, ALAC, AMR, FLAC, Monkey's Audio (APE), RealAudio, SHN, WavPack, MPC/Musepack/Mpeg+, Shorten, Speex, WMA, IT, S3M, MOD (Amiga Module), XM, NSF (NES Sound Format), SPC (SNES), GYM (Genesis), SID (Commodore 64), Adlib, YM (Atari ST), ADPCM (Nintendo GameCube), and CDDA.
*'''Digital picture/image formats:''' RAW image formats, BMP, JPEG, GIF, PNG, TIFF, MNG, ICO, PCX and Targa/TGA
* '''Digital picture/image formats:''' BMP, JPEG, GIF, PNG, TIFF, MNG, ICO, PCX, Targa/TGA and WebP
*'''Subtitle formats:''' AQTitle, ASS/SSA, CC, JACOsub, MicroDVD, MPsub, OGM, PJS, RT, SMI, SRT, SUB, VOBsub, VPlayer
* '''Subtitle formats:''' AQTitle, ASS/SSA, CC, JACOsub, MicroDVD, MPsub, OGM, PJS, RT, SMI, SRT, SUB, VOBsub, VPlayer
*'''Metadata tags:''' APEv1, APEv2, ID3 (ID3v1 and ID3v2), ID666 and Vorbis comments for audio file formats, Exif and IPTC (including GeoTagging) for image file formats
* '''Metadata tags:''' APEv1, APEv2, ID3 (ID3v1 and ID3v2), ID666 and Vorbis comments for audio file formats, Exif and IPTC (including GeoTagging) for image file formats
 
====Video playback in detail====
=====Video Library=====
The Video Library, one of the XBMC [[metadata]] [[databases]], is a key feature of XBMC. It allows the organization of video content by information associated with the video files (e.g. movies and recorded TV Shows) themselves. This information can be obtained in various ways, like through scrapers (i.e. [[web scraping]] sites like IMDb, TheMovieDB, TheTVDB, etc.), and [[.nfo|nfo]] files. Automatically downloading and displaying movie posters and [[fan art]] backdrops as background wallpapers. The Library Mode view allows users to browse their video content by categories; [[Genre]], Title, Year, Actors and Directors.<ref>XBMC is the best media center application. Period.</ref><ref>XBMC v12 makes your open source home theater look shinier"</ref>


=====Video player cores=====
==== Video playback in detail ====
===== Video Library =====
The Video Library, one of the Kodi metadata databases, is a key feature of XBMC/Kodi. It allows the organization of video content by information associated with the video files (e.g. movies and recorded TV Shows) themselves. This information can be obtained in various ways, like through scrapers (i.e. web scraping sites like TheMovieDB, TheTVDB, etc.), and nfo files. Automatically downloading and displaying movie posters and fan art backdrops as background wallpapers. The Library view allows users to browse their video content by categories; Genre, Title, Year, Actors and Directors.


XBMC uses two different [[multimedia]] video player 'cores' for video-playback. The first video-player 'core' for video-playback is an [[in-house]] developed [[cross-platform]] media player, "''DVDPlayer''", originally designed to play back [[DVD-Video]] movies, and this includes support native for [[DVD-Video#Programming interface|DVD-menus]], (based on the free [[open source]] [[library (computing)|libraries]] code [[libdvdcss]] and libdvdnav). This [[FFmpeg]] based video-player 'core' today supports all widespread mainstream formats. One relatively unusual feature of this DVD-player core is the capability to [[on-the-fly]] pause and play DVD-Video movies that are stored in [[ISO image|ISO and IMG]] DVD-images or DVD-Video ([[IFO]]/[[VOB]]/[[BUP]]) images (even directly from uncompressed [[RAR]] and [[ZIP (file format)|ZIP]] archives), from either local harddrive storage or network-share storage.<ref>XBMC is the best media center application. Period.</ref><ref>XBMC v12 delivers impressive media center experience"</ref><ref>XBMC v12 makes your open source home theater look shinier</ref>
===== Video player =====


The second video-player 'core' for video-playback in XBMC is another [[in-house]] developed [[open source]] player, "''DSPlayer''", which today is only used as an experimental video player in a [[Git (software)|Git]] development branch of XBMC for Windows and not in any other versions of XBMC. This "''DSPlayer''" is a [[Direct Show]] based media player which with the help of [[FFmpeg]] can play practically all common media formats and in addition also make XBMC for Windows handle all formats and [[container format (digital)|containers]] normally supported in Windows with the help of third-party proprietary [[Direct Show]] filters installed on the system.<ref>[https://github.com/xbmc/xbmc/pull/591 DSPlayer directshow based player]</ref>
XBMC/Kodi uses a video-player 'core' for video-playback called "[[DVDPlayer]]". This in-house developed cross-platform media player was originally designed to play back DVD-Video movies, and this includes support native for DVD-menus, (based on the free open source libraries code libdvdcss and libdvdnav). DVDPlayer is based on FFmpeg and today supports all widespread mainstream formats. One relatively unusual feature of this DVD-player core is the capability to on-the-fly pause and play DVD-Video movies that are stored in ISO and IMG DVD-images or DVD-Video (IFO/VOB/BUP) images (even directly from uncompressed RAR and ZIP archives), from either local harddrive storage or network-share storage.


====Audio playback in detail====
==== Audio playback in detail ====
=====Music Library=====
===== Music Library =====
The Music Library, one of the XBMC [[metadata]] [[databases]], is another key feature of XBMC. It allows the organization of a music collection to allow searching, and creating smart playlists by information stored in music file [[ID3|ID meta tags]], like title, artist, album, production year, [[genre]], and popularity. Automatically downloading and displaying album covers and [[fan art]] backdrops as background wallpapers.<ref>XBMC is the best media center application. Period.</ref><ref>XBMC v12 makes your open source home theater look shinier"</ref>
The Music Library, one of the XBMC/Kodi metadata databases, is another key feature of XBMC/Kodi. It allows the organization of a music collection to allow searching, and creating smart playlists by information stored in music file ID meta tags, like title, artist, album, production year, genre, and popularity. Automatically downloading and displaying album covers and fan art backdrops as background wallpapers.


=====Audio player cores=====
===== Audio player cores =====
For music playback, XBMC includes its own [[in-house]] developed audio-player, "''PAPlayer''" (which stands for "''Psycho-Acoustic Audio Player''"), and this audio-player core's most notable features are [[on-the-fly]] [[resampling (audio)|resampling]] of the audio frequency, [[gapless playback]], [[Fade (audio engineering)|crossfading]], [[ReplayGain]], [[cue sheet (music software)|cue sheet]] and [[Ogg]] Chapter support.
For music playback, Kodi includes its own in-house developed audio-player, "PAPlayer" (which stands for "Psycho-Acoustic Audio Player"), and this audio-player core's most notable features are on-the-fly resampling of the audio frequency, gapless playback, crossfading, ReplayGain, cue sheet and Ogg Chapter support. The "PAPlayer" audio-player handles a very large variety of audio file-formats, and it also supports most different tagging standards. XBMC/Kodi also have support for most popular karaoke computer file formats, and is able to play and display timed song lyrics graphics/text from CD+G, LRC, and KAR files.
The "''PAPlayer''" audio-player handles a very large variety of audio file-formats, and it also supports most different tagging standards. XBMC also have support for most popular [[karaoke]] computer file formats, and is able to play and display timed song lyrics graphics/text from [[CD+G]], [[LRC (file format)|LRC]], and [[Karaoke|KAR]] files.<ref>FLOSS Media Center State of the Art</ref>


====Digital picture/image display in detail====
==== Digital picture/image display in detail ====
XBMC handles all common [[digital camera|digital picture/image formats]] with the options of [[Ken burns effect|panning/zooming]] and [[slideshow]] with "[[Ken Burns Effect]]", with the use of [http://www.codeproject.com/bitmap/cximage.asp CxImage] open source [[library (computing)|library]] code. XBMC can also handle [[Comic Book Archive file|CBZ (ZIP) and CBR (RAR) comic book archive files]], this feature lets users view/read, browse and [[Digital zoom|zoom]] the pictures of comics pages these contain without uncompressing them first.
XBMC/Kodi handles all common digital picture/image formats with the options of panning/zooming and slideshow with "Ken Burns Effect", with the use of CxImage open source library code. XBMC/Kodi can also handle CBZ (ZIP) and CBR (RAR) comic book archive files, this feature lets users view/read, browse and zoom the pictures of comics pages these contain without uncompressing them first. Viewing CBR files in Kodi 18 Leia for Windows and upwards will require you to install the RAR Support add-on.


==References==
[[Category:Manual]]
<references/>

Latest revision as of 06:15, 10 February 2019

Home icon grey.png   ▶ General topics ▶ FAQs ▶ Features and supported formats
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Kodi can be used to play almost all popular audio and video formats around. It was designed for network playback, so you can stream your multimedia from anywhere in the house or directly from the internet using practically any protocol available. Use your media as-is: Kodi can play CDs and DVDs directly from the disk or image file, almost all popular archive formats from your hard drive. Kodi will scan all of your media and create a personalized library complete with boxcovers, descriptions, and fanart. There are playlist and slideshow functions, a weather forecast feature and many audio visualizations. Once installed, your computer will become a fully functional multimedia jukebox.

KODI's Add-ons Manager and add-ons

An Add-on is another piece of software that can be added to a program to further expand and enhance the features of that program. Imagine a smart phone and all the additional Apps that can be installed to enhance its functionality. Kodi has the same ability and these apps are referred to as Add-ons. Kodi has a growing list of community driven add-ons which can be installed from a common official repository, while still enabling third-party developers to also host their own unofficial repositories for add-ons that any user can choose to add themselves.

Scrapers (web scraping for metadata)

XBMC/Kodi has the built-in optional function to automatically download metadata information, cover art and other related media artwork online through its web scrapers that looks for media in the user's audio / video folders and their sub-directories. These "scrapers" are this way used as importers to obtain detailed information from various Internet resources about movies and television shows. It can get synopses, reviews, movie posters, titles, genre classification, and other similar data. XBMC/Kodi GUI then provide a rich display for audio and video files that the scrapers has identified.

Scrapers use sites like themoviedb.org to obtain thumbnails and information on movies, thetvdb.com for TV show posters and episode plots, or CDDB (via freedb and Discogs, etc.) for audio CD track listings.

Skins (themes)

Skins allow users to drastically change the appearance and fundamental user interface of XBMC/Kodi. "Confluence" and "Project Mayhem" are the two official skins; "Confluence" is the default since version 9.11, and "Project Mayhem" was the previous default which is now in its third version, commonly known as "PM3.HD" (PM III High-Definition).

Users can also create their own skin (or simply modify an existing skin) and share it with others via public websites that are used for XBMC/Kodi skins trading and development. Many such third-party skins exist that are well maintained by the community, and while some skins are originals with unique designs, most initially begin as a clones or an exact replica of other multimedia software interfaces, such as DivX Connected, Apple Front Row, Windows Media Center Edition (MCE), MediaPortal, Meedio/MeediOS, HDeeTV, Kaleidescape, Wii Channel Menu (Xii), Xbox 360 Blades (MC360), Xbox 360 New Xbox Experience (Xperience), and others.

The flexibility offered by the XBMC/Kodi skinning-engine is also useful for third-party companies who wish to make derivative work of Kodi as it makes it easy to rebrand the environment or make deeper changes to the look and feel of the user interface.

Web Interfaces

Web Interface addons for Kodi normally allow browsing a media library remotely, to handle music playlists from a computer instead of television. Others allow remotely controlling the navigation of Kodi like a remote for remote controlling of an installed and concurrently-active Kodi session running on a computer if it runs on an internet tablet or similar device with a touch interface. And yet other still acts like a media manager to allow modifying metadata and artwork in XBMC's video and music libraries.

Live TV with EPG and PVR / DVR frontend

From version 12 (Frodo) Kodi has a native Live TV with EPG (Electronic Program Guide) and DVR (Digital Video Recorder) features with a unified PVR (Personal Video Recorder) frontend GUI, enabling control of television video capture and playback to and from a hard disk drive with PVR Client Addons for most popular PVR backends (TV tuner card server) that can be installed separately as addons inside {{Kodi}.

PVR backend can either be networked DVR set-top box appliance hardware or PC-based digital video recorder software which can run on the same computer or other computers on the same network. PVR backend software and hardware is available which can turn personal computers running Microsoft Windows, Linux, and OS X into PVR/DVR backends.

PVR Client Addons are available for many PVR backend software and hardware such as Argus TV, DVBViewer, ForTheRecord, Tvheadend, MediaPortal, MythTV, NextPVR (formerly GB-PVR), VDR, WMC (Windows Media Center), and Enigma2-based DVR set-top boxes such as Dreambox and Vu+, as well as PVR Client Addons for direct LAN connection to Network Attached TV-Tuners such as Silicon Dust HDHomeRun and Njoy Digital AnySee N7 DVB-S2 network-tuners.

Audio, video, and pictures playback and handling

XBMC/Kodi can play media from CD/DVD media using an internal DVD-ROM drive or Blu-ray Discs (unencrypted). It can also play media from an internal built-in hard disk drive and SMB/SAMBA/CIFS shares (Windows File-Sharing), NFS, WebDAV or UPnP (Universal Plug and Play) shares. XBMC/Kodi can also take advantage of a broadband Internet connection if available to stream Internet-video-streams like YouTube, Hulu, Netflix, and Veoh, and play Internet-radio-stations (such as Pandora Radio). XBMC/Kodi also includes the option to submit music usage statistics to Last.fm and Libre.fm. It also has music/video-playlist features, picture/image-slideshow functions, an MP3+CDG karaoke function and many audio-visualizations and screensavers. XBMC/Kodi can in addition upscale/upconvert all standard-definition (480i/480p/576i/576p) resolution videos and output them to 720p, 1080i, and 1080p high-definition resolutions.

Format support

XBMC/Kodi can be used to play/view all common multimedia formats through its native clients and parsers. It can decode these audio and video formats in software or hardware, and optionally pass-through AC3/DTS/HD audio, or encode to AC3 in real time from movies directly to S/PDIF digital output to an external audio-amplifier/receiver for decoding.

Supported formats
  • Physical digital media: Blu-ray Disc (unencrypted), CDs, DVDs, DVD-Video, Video CDs (including VCD/SVCD/XVCD), Audio-CD (CDDA), USB Flash Drives, and local Hard Disk Drives
  • Network protocol clients: AirPlay/AirTunes, UPnP, SMB/SAMBA/CIFS, AFP, Zeroconf/Avahi/Bonjour, NFS, HTTP, HTTPS, FTP, RTSP (RTSPU, RTSPT), MMS (MMSU, MMST), Podcasting, TCP, UDP, SFTP, RTP and RTMP (including RTMP, RTMPT, RTMPE, RTMPTE, RTMPS), DHCP, NTP, WebDAV

Network protocol servers: JSON-RPC server, D-Bus server, Web server, FTP Server, and UPnP AV media server, and a multi-protocol Event Server

  • Container formats: AVI, MPEG, WMV, ASF, FLV, MKV/MKA (Matroska), QuickTime, MP4, M4A, AAC, NUT, Ogg, OGM, RealMedia RAM/RM/RV/RA/RMVB, 3gp, VIVO, PVA, NUV, NSV, NSA, FLI, FLC, DVR-MS, WTV, TRP and F4V.
  • Video formats: MPEG-1, MPEG-2, H.263, MPEG-4 SP and ASP, MPEG-4 AVC (H.264), H.265 (as from Kodi 14) HuffYUV, Indeo, MJPEG, RealVideo, RMVB, Sorenson, WMV, Cinepak.
  • Audio formats: MIDI, AIFF, WAV/WAVE, AIFF, MP2, MP3, AAC, AACplus (AAC+), Vorbis, AC3, DTS, ALAC, AMR, FLAC, Monkey's Audio (APE), RealAudio, SHN, WavPack, MPC/Musepack/Mpeg+, Shorten, Speex, WMA, IT, S3M, MOD (Amiga Module), XM, NSF (NES Sound Format), SPC (SNES), GYM (Genesis), SID (Commodore 64), Adlib, YM (Atari ST), ADPCM (Nintendo GameCube), and CDDA.
  • Digital picture/image formats: BMP, JPEG, GIF, PNG, TIFF, MNG, ICO, PCX, Targa/TGA and WebP
  • Subtitle formats: AQTitle, ASS/SSA, CC, JACOsub, MicroDVD, MPsub, OGM, PJS, RT, SMI, SRT, SUB, VOBsub, VPlayer
  • Metadata tags: APEv1, APEv2, ID3 (ID3v1 and ID3v2), ID666 and Vorbis comments for audio file formats, Exif and IPTC (including GeoTagging) for image file formats

Video playback in detail

Video Library

The Video Library, one of the Kodi metadata databases, is a key feature of XBMC/Kodi. It allows the organization of video content by information associated with the video files (e.g. movies and recorded TV Shows) themselves. This information can be obtained in various ways, like through scrapers (i.e. web scraping sites like TheMovieDB, TheTVDB, etc.), and nfo files. Automatically downloading and displaying movie posters and fan art backdrops as background wallpapers. The Library view allows users to browse their video content by categories; Genre, Title, Year, Actors and Directors.

Video player

XBMC/Kodi uses a video-player 'core' for video-playback called "DVDPlayer". This in-house developed cross-platform media player was originally designed to play back DVD-Video movies, and this includes support native for DVD-menus, (based on the free open source libraries code libdvdcss and libdvdnav). DVDPlayer is based on FFmpeg and today supports all widespread mainstream formats. One relatively unusual feature of this DVD-player core is the capability to on-the-fly pause and play DVD-Video movies that are stored in ISO and IMG DVD-images or DVD-Video (IFO/VOB/BUP) images (even directly from uncompressed RAR and ZIP archives), from either local harddrive storage or network-share storage.

Audio playback in detail

Music Library

The Music Library, one of the XBMC/Kodi metadata databases, is another key feature of XBMC/Kodi. It allows the organization of a music collection to allow searching, and creating smart playlists by information stored in music file ID meta tags, like title, artist, album, production year, genre, and popularity. Automatically downloading and displaying album covers and fan art backdrops as background wallpapers.

Audio player cores

For music playback, Kodi includes its own in-house developed audio-player, "PAPlayer" (which stands for "Psycho-Acoustic Audio Player"), and this audio-player core's most notable features are on-the-fly resampling of the audio frequency, gapless playback, crossfading, ReplayGain, cue sheet and Ogg Chapter support. The "PAPlayer" audio-player handles a very large variety of audio file-formats, and it also supports most different tagging standards. XBMC/Kodi also have support for most popular karaoke computer file formats, and is able to play and display timed song lyrics graphics/text from CD+G, LRC, and KAR files.

Digital picture/image display in detail

XBMC/Kodi handles all common digital picture/image formats with the options of panning/zooming and slideshow with "Ken Burns Effect", with the use of CxImage open source library code. XBMC/Kodi can also handle CBZ (ZIP) and CBR (RAR) comic book archive files, this feature lets users view/read, browse and zoom the pictures of comics pages these contain without uncompressing them first. Viewing CBR files in Kodi 18 Leia for Windows and upwards will require you to install the RAR Support add-on.