'''Kodi'''® (formerly known as <span style="font-weight: 600;">XBMC</span> or <span style="font-weight: 600;">Xbox Media Center</span>) is an award-winning, free and open source media player/entertainment hub application that runs on an exhaustive list of computers, mobile devices and HTPCs (Home theater PCs) which natively use no less than seven (7) different operating systems. It follows a [[wikipedia:10-foot user interface|10-foot user interface]] design specification which targets usage as a media player in a living room setting—or any other space where groups of people consume media without having someone seated near the player controls—using a handheld remote control as the primary input device. Its graphical user interface allows the user to easily browse and view videos, photos, podcasts, and music from local file storage, optical discs, the local network or the internet using only a few buttons. The Kodi project is managed by the non-profit '''[[Kodi Foundation]]''' and developed by volunteers located around the world. As of Summer 2022, more than 1,600 software developers have contributed to Kodi (in the form of 111,800+ individual changes to the codebase, which opened in 2003),<ref name="openhub" /> with roughly 60 core developers whose regular participation helps to steer it. Now, thanks to the generosity and dedication of over [[Translations|200 volunteer translators]], Kodi is available in 72 languages and useful no matter which continent you're on.
'''Xbox Media Center (XBMC)''' is an award-winning [[media player]] for the original [[Xbox|Xbox game-console]]. XBMC can play music, play videos and display images from the Xbox's [[DVD]] drive, its internal [[hard drive|hard-drive drive]], a [[Local area network|local network]], [[USB flash drive]], and the [[internet]]. It also functions as a replacement dashboard to launch Xbox games off the [[hard drive|hard-disk drive]]. Other functions of XBMC include large [[metadata]] [[databases]] for music/video-file handling, displaying [[weather forecasts]] and [[TV guide]]s, watching [[YouTube]] videos and [[Apple Computer|apple.com]] [[movie trailers]], listening to [[SHOUTcast]] and [[Podcasts]] [[streaming]] [[internet]] radio/video, also XBMC functions as a gaming [[Platform (computing)|platform]] by allowing users to play [[Python (programming language)|python]]-based [[minigame|mini-games]] and a free [[online gaming|online-gaming]] alternative to [[Xbox Live]]. It is important to note that the software requires a [[modchip]], [[softmod]] exploit or other means by which to execute on the Xbox as it is a [[homebrew]] application. XBMC is [[Free software|free]] and [[open source]] software, the source code is distributed under the [[GNU General Public License]]. The XBMC project is not produced or endorsed by [[Microsoft]].
Kodi® ''(then called "Xbox Media Center")'' was originally created as a media center application for the first-generation Xbox game console (no longer supported) but is now officially available as a native application for [[Android]], [[BSD]], [[Linux]], [[Mac OS X|macOS]], [[iOS]]/[[tvOS]], and [[Windows]] operating systems, running on most common processor architectures.
==Awards==
XBMC won two categories [[SourceForge]] 2006 Community Choice Awards, for [http://sourceforge.net/awards/cca/ Best Multimedia Project and Best Game Project]. Winners were announced at the [[Slashdot]] Lounge at LinuxWorld Expo, Boston, April 5, 2006.
==Features==
===Audio/Video playback and handling===
[[Image:Mc360-screenshot-3.jpg|thumb|right|300px|MC360 skin for XBMC displaying IMDb information about Superman II]]
XBMC can play media from [[CD]]/[[DVD]] media using the [[Xbox]]'s built-in [[DVD-ROM]] drive. It can also play media from the Xbox's built-in [[harddisk|harddisk-drive]], or stream them over [[Server Message Block|SMB/SAMBA/CIFS]] shares (Windows File-Sharing), [[ReplayTV]] [[digital video recorder|DVRs]], [[Universal Plug and Play|UPnP (Universal Plug and Play )]] shares, [[XBMSP]] ([[Xbox Media Stream Protocol]]) shares, or stream [[iTunes]]-shares via [[Digital Audio Access Protocol|DAAP]]. XBMC can also take advantage of the Xbox's Ethernet network port and a broadband Internet connection if available, using the [[Internet Movie Database|IMDb]] to obtain [[thumbnails]] and reviews on movies, [[CDDB]] (via [[FreeDB]]) for Audio-CD track-listings), and album-[[thumbnails]] via [[All Music Guide|AMG]], it can stream Internet-video-streams, and play Internet-radio-stations (such as [[SHOUTcast]]). XBMC also includes the option to submit music usage statistics to [[Last.fm]] and a weather-forecast (via [http://www.weather.com weather.com]). It also has music/video-playlist features, picture/image-[[slideshow]] functions, an MP3+CDG [[karaoke]] function and many [[Music visualization|audio-visualizations]] and [[screensaver]]s. XBMC can in addition [[Upscaling DVD|upscale/upconvert]] all 480p/576p [[SDTV|standard-resolution]] videos and output them to [[HDTV|720p or 1080i HDTV]]-resolutions.
===Format support===
== Introduction ==
XBMC can be used to play/view all common [[multimedia]] formats 'straight out-of-the-box'. It can decode these in software and optionally pass-through [[Dolby Digital|AC3]]/[[Digital Theater System|DTS]] audio from movies directly to [[S/PDIF]] output to an external audio-[[Audio amplifier|amplifier]]/[[Audio receiver#Hi-Fi .2F Home theater|receiver]]. For a detailed up-to-date list see the "Supported Formats" list in XBMC online-manual [http://www.xboxmediacenter.com/wiki/index.php?title=XBMC_Features_and_Supported_Formats/Codecs here].
XBMC uses two different [[multimedia]] player 'cores' for video-playback. The first is a ported version of the [[open source]] [[cross-platform]] player, [[MPlayer]], which is known for playing practically all common [[proprietary]] media-formats without having to pay [[royalties|license fees]]. XBMC handles all [[codecs]] and [[Container format (digital)|containers]] normally supported by [[MPlayer]] (all [[FFmpeg]] supported [[codecs]] and also several external ones with the help of [[proprietary]] [[Dynamic-link library|DLL]]-files: [[RealMedia]]/[[RealVideo]]/[[RealAudio]], [[QuickTime]], [[WMV9]]/[[WMA9]], [[VP4]]/[[VP5]]/[[VP6]]), and the sources are synced at regular intervals.
:{{Main|Add-ons}}
{{#lst:Add-ons|intro}}
The second video-player 'core' for video-playback is an [[in-house]] developed [[DVD player|DVD-player]] for [[DVD-Video|DVD-Video movies]], including the support of [[DVD-Video#Menu programming interface|DVD-menus]], (based on the [[open source]] and free [[Library (computing)|libraries]] code [[libdvdcss]] and [[libdvdnav]]). This video-player 'core' support all the [[FFmpeg]] [[codecs]], and in addition the [[MPEG-2]] [[video codec]], and the [[audio codecs]] [[DTS]] and [[AC3]] (based on the [[open source]] code [[Library (computing)|libraries]]: [[libmpeg2]], [[libdca]]/[[libdts]], and [[liba52]]/[[libac3]] respectively). One relatively unusual feature of this DVD-player core is the capability to [[on-the-fly]] parse and play [[DVD-Video]] movies that are stored in [[ISO image|ISO and IMG]] DVD-images, [[DVD-Video]] movies that are stored as [[DVD-Video]] ([[IFO]]/[[VOB]]/[[BUP]]) files on a harddrive or network-share, and also [[ISO image|ISO and IMG]] DVD-images directly from [[RAR]] and [[ZIP (file format)|ZIP]] archives. In addition to this, the XBMC DVD-player 'core' can [[Upscaling DVD|upscale/upconvert]] all [[DVD-Video]] movies and output them to [[HDTV|720p or 1080i HDTV]] resolutions in better quality than most, if not all, [[high-definition television]] set's native function for [[Upscaling DVD|upscaling/upconverting]] video.
For additional information about specific add-ons, see the '''[[:Category:All add-ons|All add-ons]]''' category.
====Music Library====
The Music Library, one of the XBMC [[databases]], is a key feature of XBMC. It allows the organization of your music collection by information stored in your music file ID tag, like title, artist, album, genre and popularity.
====Audio playback in detail====
=== Video demos ===
[[Image:Clearity-screenshot-2.jpg|thumb|right|300px|Clearity skin for XBMC displaying song information OSD]]
Check out this excellent introduction video (1m 36s) by Lifehacker:<ref name="lifehacker" /><br />
For audio playback, XBMC includes its own [[in-house]] developed audio-player: [[PAPlayer|PAPlayer (Psycho-Acoustic Audio Player)]]. Some of this audio-player core's most notable features are [[on-the-fly]] [[resampling]] to the Xbox's native audio frequency (48 kHz), [[gapless playback]], [[Fade (audio engineering)|crossfading]], [[Replay Gain]], [[cue sheet (music software)|cue sheet]] and [[Ogg]] Chapter support.
::{{YouTube|T970YM3w1LY}}
It handles a very large variety of audio file-formats: [[MP2 (format)|MP2]], [[MP3]], [[Vorbis]], [[Musepack]], [[Advanced Audio Coding|AAC]], [[HE-AAC|AACplus (AAC+)]], [[Monkey's Audio|APE]], [[FLAC]], [[WavPack]], [[Shorten]], [[AIFF]], [[WAV]], [[DTS Coherent Acoustics|DTS]], [[Dolby Digital|AC3]], [[CDDA]], [[Windows Media Audio|WMA]], [[Impulse Tracker|IT]], [[ScreamTracker|S3M]], [[MOD (file format)|MOD]] (Amiga Module), [[XM (file format)|XM]], NSF ([[NES Sound Format]]), [[SPC700 sound format|SPC]] ([[SNES]]), [[GYM]] ([[Sega Mega Drive/Sega Genesis|Genesis]]), [[MOS Technology SID|SID]] ([[Commodore 64]]), [[Adlib]], [[YM2149|YM]] ([[Atari ST]]), [[ADPCM]] ([[Nintendo GameCube|GameCube]]). It also supports many different tagging standards: APEv1, [[APEv2 tag|APEv2]], [[ID3]]v1, [[ID3#ID3v2|ID3v2]], [[ID666]] and [[Vorbis comment]]s.
====Digital picture/image display in detail====
A Kodi beginners guide (13m 27s) by forum user fredphoesh:<ref name="fredphoesh" /><br />
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 you view/read, browse and [[zoom]] the pictures of [[comics]] pages these contain without uncompressing them first.
::{{YouTube|2O4fCGrwrqw}}
===Python scripts (widgets/gadgets) plugins===
XBMC features a [[Python (programming language)|Python Scripts Engine]] and WindowXML [[application framework]] (a [[XML]]-based [[widget toolkit]] for creating a [[GUI]] for [[Widget (computing)|widgets]]) in a similar fashion to Apple Mac OS X [[Dashboard (software)|Dashboard Widgets]] and [[Microsoft Gadgets]] in [[Windows Sidebar]]. Python [[Widget (computing)|widget]] scripts allow normal users to add new functionality to XBMC themselves, (using the easy to learn [[Python (programming language)|Python programming language]]), without having to utilize an illegal copy of the [[XDK]] and without knowledge of the complex [[C++|C/C++ programming language]]. Current [[plugins|plugin]] scripts include functions like [[Internet television|Internet-TV]] and [[Trailer (film)|movie-trailer]] browsers, [[Weather forecasting|weather forecast]] and [[Movie theater|cinema]]guides, [[Electronic program guide|TV-guides (EPG)]], e-mail clients, [[instant messaging]], train-timetables, scripts to [[Front-end and back-end|front-end]] control [[Personal video recorder|PVR]] software and hardware (like: [[MediaPortal]], [[MythTV]], [[TiVo]], [[ReplayTV]], [[Dreambox]]/[[DBox2]]), Internet-radio-station browsers (example [[SHOUTcast]], [[Xm radio]], [[Sirius Satellite Radio]]), [[Peer-to-peer|P2P]] file-sharing downloaders ([[BitTorrent]]), [[Internet Relay Chat|IRC]], also [[casual games]] (sometimes also referred to as [[Minigame|mini-games]] or [[Party game|party-games]]) such as [[Tetris]], [[Snake (video game)|Snake]], [[Space Invaders]], [[Sudoku]], and much more.
===Dashboard function (game/application launcher)===
=== Language support ===
XBMC has a "My Programs" section with functions as a replacement [[Xbox Dashboard|dashboard]] to launch [[List of Xbox games|Xbox games]] (retail and [[Homebrew (video games)|homebrew]]) and [[Application software|applications]]/[[List of emulators|emulator]] directly off the Xbox built-in [[harddrive]], all from a nice [[GUI]] with [[thumbnail]] and list options. This fully replaces the original [[Xbox Dashboard]] from [[Microsoft]], and with the exception of flashing new [[BIOS]] to a Xbox [[modchip]] it also features all extra functions that other [[Homebrew (video games)|homebrew]] [[Xbox Dashboard|dashboard]]s have.
{{See|Language portal}}
Kodi includes full support for many different languages by default. Kodi's structure is such that if the language is not available, or not up-to-date, it can be created by signing up at the [https://kodi.weblate.cloud/accounts/register/ Kodi Translations Project].
====XBMC Trainer Support (game cheats mods)====
Currently the existing supported languages are: Acadian French, Afrikaans, Albanian, American English, Amharic, Argentinian Spanish, Armenian, Asturian, Australian English, Azerbaijani, Basque, Belarusian, Bosnian, Brazilian Portuguese, Bulgarian, Burmese, Catalan, Chinese (Simplified), Chinese (Traditional), Croatian, Czech, Danish, Dari, Dutch, English, Esperanto, Estonian, European Portuguese, Faroese, Finnish, Galician, German, Greek, Hebrew, Hungarian, Icelandic, Indonesian, Italian, Japanese, Kannada, Korean, Latvian, Lithuanian, Macedonian, Malayam, Malay, Maltese, Maori, Metropolitan French, Mexican Spanish, Mongolian, New Zealand English, Norwegian, Ossetian, Peninsular Arabic, Peninsular Spanish, Persian, Polish, Romanian, Russian, Serbian (Cyrillic), Serbian (Latin), Silesian, Sinhala, Slovak, Slovenian, Swedish, Tajik, Tamil, Telugu, Thai, Turkish, Ukrainian, Uzbek, Vietnamese and Welsh.
[[Image:Screenshot190.JPG|thumb|right|300px|Enabling trainer [[Mod (computer gaming)|mods]] on games]]
XBMC also has the ability to use and apply Xbox [[Trainer (games)|Trainer]] Files. [[Trainer (games)|Trainers]] are small files that allow for in game value [[Mod (computer gaming)|modification]] (such as [[cheat code]]) through altering retail functions in game values by way of using [[Terminate and Stay Resident|TSR (Terminate and Stay Resident)]] keys.
There are many things that can be [[Mod (computer gaming)|modified]] including ammunition, extra-lifes, or even how high a character can jump. Trainer support in XBMC was achieved through collaboration with [[Team Xored]]. This collaboration began in December 2005 and came to fruition in January 2006 by successfully integrating the [[Team Xored|Team Xored Trainer Engine]] into XBMC.
XBMC can run trainers with the following file extensions: *.ETM and *.XBTF.
====XLink Kai (Xbox Live online-gaming alternative)====
XBMC has an integrated [[Front-end and back-end|front-end]] for an [[Xbox Live]] alternative (called "[[XLink Kai]]"), an [[online gaming]] platform, enabling you to both control the [[XLink Kai|Kai engine]] and play system-link/LAN-enabled Xbox [[Online game|games online]], without connecting to the [[Xbox Live]] service, straight from your console.
==Running XBMC==
[[Image:Mc360-screenshot-1.jpg|thumb|right|300px|MC360 skin for XBMC displaying the media blade]]At present, the latest 'stable' version of XBMC is 2.0.1 final point-release which was released on 12 November, 2006. Since XBMC is an [[open source]] software program, its development [[source code]] is stored on a publicly-accessible [[Subversion]] server. This code is constantly updated on a daily-basis by developers so the Subversion repository often contains more features than the most recent 'stable' release. Accordingly, [[executable]] builds from the Subversion repository are often released by [[third-party developer|third-parties]]. It should be noted, however, that [[executable]] builds from development versions typically contain bugs not present in the most recent 'stable' release versions of XBMC.
XBMC is not a [[authorized|authorized/signed]] [[Microsoft]] product, therefore a [[Xbox#Modding the Xbox|modification of the Xbox]] is required in order to run XBMC on a [[Xbox]] game-console. XBMC can be run as an [[Application software|application]] (like any Xbox game), or as a [[Xbox Dashboard|dashboard]] that appears directly when the [[Xbox]] is turned on. It takes approximately ten seconds to fully load XBMC.
== Hardware requirements ==
:{{Main|Supported hardware}}
{{#lst:Supported hardware|intro}}
==Language support==
XBMC also includes support for many different languages. XBMC's structure is such that if your language is not available, or not up-to-date, then you can easily make your translation by editing an [[XML]]-file, which can be submitted to the project's database for use by others. Currently the existing supported languages are [[Brazilian Portuguese]], [[Catalan language|Catalan]], [[Simplified Chinese]], [[Traditional Chinese]], [[Croatian language|Croatian]], [[Czech language|Czech]], [[Danish language|Danish]], [[Dutch language|Dutch]], [[English language|English]], [[Esperanto]], [[Finnish language|Finnish]], [[French language|French]], [[German language|German]], [[Greek language|Greek]], [[Hebrew]], [[Hungarian language|Hungarian]], [[Icelandic language|Icelandic]], [[Italian language|Italian]], [[Japanese language|Japanese]], [[Korean language|Korean]], [[Maltese language|Maltese]], [[Norwegian language|Norwegian]], [[Polish language|Polish]], [[Portuguese language|Portuguese]], [[Romanian language|Romanian]], [[Russian language|Russian]], [[Serbian language|Serbian]], [[Slovene]], [[Spanish language|Spanish]], [[Swedish language|Swedish]] and [[Turkish language|Turkish]].
==Skins and skinning-engine==
A mainstay of Xbox [[Homebrew (video games)|homebrew]] applications is [[Skin (computing)|skin]]-ability in the tradition of case modifications. XBMC is noted as having a very flexible [[GUI toolkit]] and robust [[Software framework|framework]] for its [[GUI]], using a standard [[XML]] base, making [[Theme (computing)|theme]]-[[skinning]] and personal [[customization]] very accessible. Users can create their own skin (or simply modify an existing skin) and share it with others via public websites dedicated for Xbox and XBMC skins trading. "Project Mayhem" is the official [[Skin (computing)|skin]]; which is now in its third version, commonly know as "PMIII" or "PM3". Many third-party skins exist and while some are original designs, most are [[Clone (video games)|clones]] or an exact [[replica]] of other multimedia softwares, such as [[Front Row|Apple Front Row (iTV)]], [[Windows XP Media Center Edition|Windows Media Center Edition (MCE)]], [[MediaPortal]], [[Meedio HDeeTV]], [[Kaleidescape]], [[Xbox360#Software|Xbox 360 blades (MC360)]], and others.
<center>
<gallery>
Image:Screenshot191.JPG|A user browsing a user's music collection with XBMC using the the "PMIII" [[Skin (computing)|skin]]
Image:Screenshot189.JPG|XBMC is able to launch games from the [[harddrive]] (shown here with the "PMIII" [[Skin (computing)|skin]])
Image:Vision-screenshot-1.jpg|Vision [[Skin (computing)|skin]] for XBMC showing the "My Programs" section
</gallery>
</center>
==Programming and developing==
== Official versions ==
XBMC is a non-profit [[open source]] [[hobby]] project that is developed only by volunteers in their spare-time without any [[monetary]] gain. The team of developers working on XBMC encurage anyone submit your own [[Patch (computing)|source code patches]] for new features are functions, improve or existing ones, or fix [[software bug|bugs]].
{{See|Releases}}
Full featured versions of Kodi are available on a number of operating system platforms. Team Kodi strives to keep a consistent feature set and include the full Kodi experience for all versions, even those on low-powered devices.
XBMC's main [[Computer program|program]] (including the [[GUI]]) is developed in [[Microsoft Visual Studio .NET]]. The [[source code]] is programed in [[C++]] (and some [[Assembly language|Assembly]]), and uses [[DirectX|Microsoft DirectX]] multimedia [[Software framework|framework]], (the [[Xbox]] does not support [[OpenGL]]). Some of the XBMC [[Library (computing)|libraries]] are also in [[C (programming language)|C programming-language]] but those then uses a C++ wrapper and are loaded via XBMC's own [[Dynamic-link library|DLL]] loader. The Xbox [[Operating System|Operating-System]]/[[BIOS]] is [[Win32]]-based but does have all of the resources or capabilities of a full [[Microsoft Windows]] Operating-System, (for example: [[DirectShow]], [[Windows Registry|registry]], nor [[Dynamic-link library|DLL]] are nativly supported on the Xbox). Because of the constraints on the hardware and environment of the Xbox all software development for XBMC are focused on reserving the limited resourses that exist, the main hindrance of which is the amount of available [[random access memory]] at any one time.
===Xbox Development Environment===
=== Windows ===
It is important to always keep in mind all the aspects of the Xbox environment when developing XBMC for the Xbox.
:{{Main|Windows}}
====Hardware====
''Kodi for Windows'' runs natively on Windows Vista and higher. It is a 32-bit application but runs on 64-bit Windows and hardware as well, however it is not yet optimized for that architecture so there is no performance gain when running on 64-bit Windows. 1080p playback can be achieved on Windows based computers either via software decoding on the CPU if it's powerful enough, or by hardware accelerated video decoding.
*Xbox only has a 733[[Mhz]] [[Intel Pentium III]] CPU @ 133 MHz FSB (supporting MMX/MMX2 and SEE)
*The Xbox only has 64MB of shared RAM (memory is shared between CPU and GPU)
*Xbox [[GPU]] is a [[nVidia]] [[NV2A]] @ 233 MHz (somewhat in between [[GeForce 2 Series|GeForce 2]] and [[GeForce 3 Series|GeForce 3]] series)
*The [[Audio Processing Unit|APU]] is a [[nVidia]] [[MPC]] (designed for Xbox, a.k.a. [[MPCX]]), which only support 48[[Khz]]-output
**The [[Audio Processing Unit|APU]] is integrated to the MPCX APU and can encode to [[AC3]] audio on-the-fly in hardware
*The Xbox-chipset can be described in layman terms as something similar to the first nVidia [[nForce]]
**The chipset designed by nVidia and makes up a southbridge (the [[MPCX|MPCX-1]]) and the GPU ([[NV2A]])
*Most Xbox [[DVD-ROM]] drives are made by Philips/Thomson/Hitatchi and can't read [[CD-R]] media
**[[DVD-ROM]] drives made by Philips/Thomson/Hitatchi can not read CD/DVD [[CD+G|subchannels]] either
***Samsung made Xbox [[DVD-ROM]] drives can read CD-R media and sub-channels
====Operating-System====
*The Xbox does not have a Operating-System per-se, instead it only has a basic BIOS
**Everything else must go into the XBMC executable and its ([[XDK]] and own-made) [[Library (computing)|libraries]]
*Only a single [[Thread (computer science)|process-thread]] ([[executable]] [[Computer program|program]]) can run at any one time on the Xbox
*[[FATX|Xbox hard drive file-system]] ([[FATX]]) has many limitations, among them a filename maximum of 42-[[Character (computing)|characters]]
*The Xbox has four [[USB]] ports but the [[XDK|Xbox SDK]] (a.k.a. [[XDK]]) does not contain a full USB-[[Stack (data structure)|stack]]
**if wanted to add support for USB hardware-devices one would have to make it for oneselves
====Compiling====
*[[XDK|Xbox SDK]] (a.k.a. [[XDK]]) [[Software Development Kit]] (with [[Library (computing)|libraries]]) is required to [[compiler|compile]] XBMC
*Also required to [[compiler|compile]] (and [[program]] in) XBMC is [[Microsoft Visual Studio .NET]] version 7.1
*XBMC's code also contain four multimedia-player cores which has to be [[compiler|compiled]] seperatly
**None of those require [[XDK]] to be compiled, they are instead compiled with [[MinGW]]/[[MSYS]]
==Limitations==
=== Android ===
*XBMC can not currently play any audio/video files [[Encryption|protected/encrypted]] with [[Digital Rights Management|DRM (Digital Rights Management)]], such as music purchased from the [[iTunes Music Store]], [[MSN Music]] or [[Audible.com]]. Workaround: Before playing the file in XBMC, first remove any DRM protection/encryption from the song or video with a [[Third-party developer|third-party]] program before you try to play it, e.g: [[JHymn|hymn]], [[FreeMe]], [[Unfuck]], [[FairUse4WM]], [[DRM2WMV]] or [[DRMDBG]]).
:{{Main|Android}}
*[[Universal Disk Format|UDF (Universal Disk Format)]] file-system limitation: XBMC only supports UDF version 1.02 (designed for [[DVD-Video]] media), which has a maximum file-size of 1GB (meaning if you burn a DVD-media in a newer UDF version with a video that is larger than 1GB, XBMC will not be able to play that file), same goes for UDF/ISO hybrid formats (a.k.a. UDF Bridge format). Workaround: Burn all your CD/DVD-media in [[ISO 9660]] format, which is the most common standard for recording CD/DVDs. Unfortunately [[ISO 9660]] has a 2[[Gigabyte|GB]] file-size limitation, which cannot be bypassed.
''Kodi for Android'' is a full port of the complete Kodi application to Google's Android operating-system, was first announced and its source code released publicly on 13 June 2012. This is a full port of Kodi's C++ and C source code with all its dependencies to Android with a build-system that was designed to handle multiple processor architectures, like ARM, MIPS, and x86 with the Android NDK (Native Development Kit for Android) without using a single line of Java, and the Kodi.APK is running natively under Android as a Native Activity application.
*The [[ISO 9660]] and [[Universal Disk Format|UDF]] reader [[Class (computer science)|class]]es in XBMC does not support reading [[Multisession#Sessions|multisession]] authored CD/DVD-media. That is XBMC can only read the first [[Multisession#Sessions|sessions]] of a [[Multisession#Sessions|multisession]] burnt CD or DVD media disc.
*The Xbox built-in harddrive is formatted in [[FATX]] which has a 4[[Gigabyte|GB]] file-size limitation, and only supports file/folder-names up to 42 characters, a maximum of 255 in total file-structure character-depth and a maximum number of 4096 files/folders in a single subfolder, plus in the root of each partition, the maximum number of files/folders is 256. [[File Allocation Table|FAT]] does not support all [[ASCII|ASCII characters]] in file/folder names (like for example < > = ? : ; " * + , / \|¤ &). XBMC will automatically rename any files/folders you transfer to the Xbox by these limitations. (None of these are XBMC issues that can be fixed as the limitation is in the [[Xbox]] itself). Workaround: Store your files/folders on your computer or a [[Network-attached storage|Network-Attached Storage (NAS)]] device/box which support [[Server Message Block|SMB/CIFS]], [[FTP]] or [[UPnP]] and share them over a [[Local area network|local-area-network]] instead.
*The [[USB flash drive]] ([[USB]] [[keydrive|key-drives/memory-keys]]) reader/writer [[Class (computer science)|class]] used by XBMC currently has a few limitations as well. It is limited to [[USB flash drive]]s and [[harddisk]]s compatible with [[USB Mass Storage Device Class]] following the [[USB|USB 1.1 standard]], with a maximum size of 4[[Gigabyte|GB]]. It can read and write to FATX formatted flash drives, but can only read [[File Allocation Table|FATs]] FAT12, FAT16 (including VFAT), and FAT32. [[NTFS]] formatted drives are not supported yet.
*With its 733 MHz [[Intel Pentium III]] [[Celeron]] and 64MB [[shared memory]], the [[Xbox]] does not have enough hardware-resources (not fast enough [[CPU]] nor large enough [[Random access memory|RAM-memory]]) to play 720p/1080i resolution-native [[HDTV]] video (at 1280x720 and 1920x1080 pixels), (like [[WMVHD|WMV HD]]). XBMC can however upconvert all 480p/576p [[SDTV|standard-resolution]] movies and output them to [[HDTV|720p or 1080i HDTV]] resolutions in better quality than most (if not all) HDTV's native function to upconvert video.
* Again with its 733 MHz [[Intel Pentium III]] [[Celeron]] and 64MB [[shared memory]], the [[Xbox]] does not have enough hardware-resources (not fast enough [[CPU]] nor large enough [[Random access memory|RAM-memory]]) to play [[H264|MPEG-4 AVC (H.264)]] encoded videos with [[H.264#Profiles|Cabac and Deblocking]] if the video-resolution is higher than 352x288 pixels. Workaround: If you encode your [[H264|MPEG-4 AVC (H.264)]] videos without [[H.264#Profiles|Cabac and Deblocking]] then the [[Xbox]] hardware can handle up to 720x576 pixels video-resolution. It is best to encode your videos to [[MPEG-4|MPEG-4 ASP]] (like [[DivX]] or [[XviD]]) instead, as then that video's native-resolution can be anything up to 960x540 pixels (also known as [[Half Resolution High Definition|HRHD]] resolution).
==Legality==
While XBMC [[source code]] is made publicly available from the developers under an [[open source]] ([[GNU GPL]]) [[license]], the developers themselves are legally unable to distribute [[executable]] versions of XBMC. Due to this, the only publicly available [[executable]] versions of XBMC are from [[third party|third parties]] and are of dubious legal status.
===Copyright===
=== iOS ===
The XBMC software is licensed under the [[GNU General Public License|GNU General Public License (GPL)]] by the developers, meaning they allow anybody to redistribute XBMC under extremely liberal conditions. However, in order to compile the XBMC into [[executable]] form, it is currently necessary to use the [[Xbox Development Kit|Microsoft XDK (Xbox Development Kit)]] which is only available to licensed developers and the resulting code may only be distributed by them. Accordingly, code compiled with an unauthorized copy of the [[Xbox Development Kit]] may not be distributed legally. A [[third-party]] project called [[OpenXDK]] is concerned with producing a replacement for the Microsoft XDK. While this could potentially allow legal [[Binary file|binaries]] of XBMC to be compiled, it would require significant changes to the XBMC source code.
:{{Main|iOS}}
''Kodi for iOS'', which is a full port of Kodi to Apple's [[iOS]] operating-system, was first announced and released publicly on 20 January 2011. It supports both 720p and 1080p hardware accelerated video decoding of H.264 videos, and is compatible several Apple's [[IOS|iDevice]]s that uses Apple A4 or higher SoC processors with a jailbroken iOS operating-system.
XBMC provides, for audio and video [[codecs]] which are not natively supported, a [[Dynamic-link library|DLL]] loader [[Fork (software)|forked]] from the "[[avifile]]" open source project which can load [[third-party]] made [[Dynamic-link library|DLL]]s to decode unsupported formats. Where the user owns a licensed copy of the [[Dynamic-link library|DLL]], this is potentially legal. However, some [[third-party]] XBMC builds incorporate all available third-party [[Dynamic-link library|DLL]]s that XBMC can support and the redistribution of these without a licence is copyright infringement.
===Patents===
=== Mac ===
For most popular video and audio codecs, XBMC includes native support through the [[libavcodec]] [[Library (computer science)|library]] from the [[FFmpeg]] project. Since this code is released under a free and [[open source]] license, it is legally redistributable. However, some of these compression methods, [[MP3#Licensing and patent issues|such as the popular MP3 format, are covered by patents]] in many countries. Absent a licence, this would make it illegal to redistribute versions of XBMC including support for these patented formats. This is a problem common among many [[open source]] multimedia projects/applications.
:{{Main|Mac OS X}}
''Kodi for Mac'' runs natively on [[Mac OS X]] with Intel processors with hardware video decoding for H.264.
===Other===
XBMC also includes support for playing back [[DVD-Video]] movies encrypted using the [[Content Scramble System|CSS (Content Scramble System)]] encryption. The distribution of [[executable]] versions of XBMC containing this code is likely to fall afoul of the [[Digital Millennium Copyright Act]] in the [[U.S.]] and the [[EU Copyright Directive]] in the [[European Union]] member countries which have so far incorporated it into national law.
==See also==
=== Linux ===
{{portalpar|free software}}
:{{Main|Linux}}
*[[Media player]], the definition of "mediaplayer" software
''Kodi for Linux'' is primarily developed for Ubuntu Linux. Third-party packages for most other Linux distributions are however available, and it is also possible to compile Kodi from scratch for any Linux distribution as long as the pre-required dependency libraries are installed first.
**[[Media center]], the definition of "mediacenter" software
*[[MPlayer]], the [[open source]] and [[cross-platform]] software XBMC uses as its main video player core
*[[FFmpeg]], the audio and video [[codecs|codecs suit]] source code XBMC uses for all its player cores
*[[MediaPortal]], once only a forked version of XBMC to [[Microsoft Windows]] it is today a full-blown [[media center]]
*[[List of video players (software)|List of other software video players]]
*[[Comparison of media players|Comparison of (audio/video) media and DVD-Video players]]
*[[Comparison of PVR software packages]]
*[[List of codecs|List of multimedia (audio/video) codecs]]
**[[Open source codecs and containers]]
**[[Comparison of video codecs]]
**[[Comparison of audio codecs]]
*[[Comparison of container formats|Comparison of (audio/video) container formats]]
**[[Open source codecs and containers]]
==External links==
===Official sites===
* [http://www.xboxmediacenter.com XboxMediaCenter (XBMC) official website]
* [http://forum.xboxmediacenter.com XboxMediaCenter (XBMC) official community forum] (for posting help/support requests, bugs and development discussions)
* [http://xboxmediacenter.com/wiki/index.php?title=Xbox_Media_Center_Online_Manual XboxMediaCenter (XBMC) 'new' official online-manual] (wiki-based user-guide, uses the same Wiki-engine as Wikipedia)
* [http://www.xboxmediacenter.com/wacko/ XboxMediaCenter (XBMC) 'old' official online-manual (wiki-based)]
* [irc://irc.freenode.net/ XBMC official IRC chat room (on Freenode)] (use an [[IRC]] client like [[mIRC]] to join the #xbmc channel)
* [irc://irc.efnet.net/xbmc XBMC official IRC chat room (on EFnet)] (use an [[IRC]] client like [[mIRC]] to join the #xbmc channel) - channel now muted, Freenode chat room (link above) remains active
===Modifications===
* [http://www.xbmcscripts.com/ XBMC Widget/Gadget Plug-in Scripts] (Python plugins which adds additional features and functionality to XBMC)
* [http://sourceforge.net/projects/xboxmediacenter The official XBMC-skin download and developers site (XBMC Skinning Project)]
* [http://www.xbox-skins.net Unofficial XBMC skin download site (www.xbox-skins.net)]
* [http://www.allxboxskins.com Another unofficial XBMC skin download site (www.allxboxskins.com)]
===Articles & Reviews===
== Third-party forks and derivative work of Kodi ==
* [http://www.tvharmony.com/blog/archives/2004/09/xboxmediacenter.html Review on tvharmony.com]
:{{Main|Forks}}
* [http://www.popsci.com/popsci/how20/c635c6f39986c010vgnvcm1000004eecbccdrcrd.html?s_prop18=how2 Review and HOW-TO on Popular Science (popsci.com)]
* [http://www.surrealroad.com/digital/archives/2005/xbox-media-center/ Review by Digital Intermediates]
* [http://www.o-sd.com/hardcoregamermag/publicPDF/HGM_Aug.pdf Review in Hardcore Gamer Magazine (Volume 1, Issue 3, August 2005)]
* [http://www.powerpage.org/archives/2005/10/why_your_next_i_1.html O'Grady's PowerPage Article: Why Your Next iMac may be an Xbox]
* [http://www.gamepro.com/microsoft/xbox/games/features/102769.shtml GamePro.com: 6 ways to resurrect your Xbox]
* [http://sourceforge.net/projects/xbmc/ XboxMediaCenter (XBMC) official SourceForge.net project] (CVS/source-code/patches//tools/bug-tracker/feature-requests)
* [http://freshmeat.net/projects/xbmc/ freshmeat.net: Project details for The XboxMediaCenter Project]
===Third-party support forums and guides===
* [http://forums.xbox-scene.com/index.php?s=64c7fed999e317cc99e26926433d74c0&showforum=62 XBMC community forums @ xbox-scene.com (unofficial but affiliated by shared moderators)]
* [http://slackerpedia.com/xbmc-mac/ HOW-TO use a Mac to install/setup XBMC]
* [http://www.productwiki.com/microsoft_xbox/article/how_to_go_from_xbox_to_xbox_media_center_in_30_minutes.html Transform an Xbox into the ultimate media center in 30-minutes] A popular step-by-step HOW-TO guide for softmodding your Xbox
===News===
* "[http://www.xboxmediacenter.com/forum/showthread.php?p=115893 XBMC Win32 PC environment for skinners and python developers], XBMC was in [[November 2006]] partially ported to [[Win32]] to run on [[Microsoft Windows]]
**Only the [[GUI]] part for development purposes so far, however anyone can finish this port to make the software complete.
| style="font-size: 1.1rem; font-weight: 600; line-height: 1.4;" | Most Likely to Get Users Sued by Anachronistic<br />Industry Associations Defending Dead Business Models
| class="plainlinks" style="background-color: Green; border-top: 0; color: #fff; padding-top: 0; text-align: center; vertical-align: top;" | Editor rating: EXCELLENT<br /><span style="padding-left: 4.25em;">5/5 (100%)</span><ref group="awards" name="mi_archive">Fernández, José. 2013. (Senior Editor, Informer Technologies, Inc.) [https://web.archive.org/web/20140409150429if_/http://macdownload.informer.com:80/xbmc/ “Editorial review: XBMC for Mac.”] ''Mac Informer.'' August 1, 2013. Archived by the Wayback Machine from the [https://macdownload.informer.com/xbmc/ original] on April 9, 2014. ‘''In short, XBMC is still my favorite HTPC app. It looks great, works awesome and it has never caused a problem for me.''’</ref>
Kodi is a non-profit and free software community driven open-source software project that is developed only by volunteers in their spare time without any monetary gain. The team of developers leading the development of Kodi, ''“[[Archive:Team Kodi|Team Kodi]]”'', encourage anyone and everyone to submit their own source code patches for new features and functions, improve existing ones, or fix bugs to the Kodi project.
Kodi's source code for all its supported platforms is made publicly available by [[Archive:Team Kodi|Team Kodi]] under the open source GNU General Public License, Version 2 (or later) license. The group maintains a [https://github.com/xbmc/xbmc public Git repository] on GitHub for this source code.
== References ==
<references>
<ref name="weblate_lang_list">[https://kodi.weblate.cloud/languages/ Languages.] ''Kodi Weblate.'' Accessed on August 18, 2022.</ref>
<ref name="licenses-dir_readme">"[https://github.com/xbmc/xbmc/blob/master/LICENSES/README.md Kodi's licensing rules]." ''[https://github.com/xbmc/xbmc xbmc/xbmc] on GitHub.'' Accessed on August 18, 2022.</ref>
<ref name="openhub">[https://www.openhub.net/p/kodi "The Kodi Open Source Project."] ''[https://www.openhub.net/ Black Duck Open Hub], part of Synopsys.'' Accessed on August 18, 2022.</ref>
<ref name="lifehacker">Whitson, Gordon. 2012. [https://lifehacker.com/create-a-kickass-seamless-play-everything-media-cente-5900626 “Create a Kickass, Seamless, Play-Everything Media Center: The Complete Guide.”] ''Lifehacker Australia.'' April 10, 2012.</ref>
<ref name="fredphoesh">[https://forum.kodi.tv/member.php?action=profile&uid=66118 Profile of fredphoesh.] ''Kodi Community Forum.'' May 21, 2012.</ref>
</references>
== Further reading ==
* '''[https://kodi.tv/ Official Website]'''
* [[wikipedia:Kodi (software)|'''Kodi''']] on English Wikipedia
Kodi® (formerly known as XBMC or Xbox Media Center) is an award-winning, free and open source media player/entertainment hub application that runs on an exhaustive list of computers, mobile devices and HTPCs (Home theater PCs) which natively use no less than seven (7) different operating systems. It follows a 10-foot user interface design specification which targets usage as a media player in a living room setting—or any other space where groups of people consume media without having someone seated near the player controls—using a handheld remote control as the primary input device. Its graphical user interface allows the user to easily browse and view videos, photos, podcasts, and music from local file storage, optical discs, the local network or the internet using only a few buttons. The Kodi project is managed by the non-profit Kodi Foundation and developed by volunteers located around the world. As of Summer 2022, more than 1,600 software developers have contributed to Kodi (in the form of 111,800+ individual changes to the codebase, which opened in 2003),[3] with roughly 60 core developers whose regular participation helps to steer it. Now, thanks to the generosity and dedication of over 200 volunteer translators, Kodi is available in 72 languages and useful no matter which continent you're on.
Kodi® (then called "Xbox Media Center") was originally created as a media center application for the first-generation Xbox game console (no longer supported) but is now officially available as a native application for Android, BSD, Linux, macOS, iOS/tvOS, and Windows operating systems, running on most common processor architectures.
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.
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.
For additional information about specific add-ons, see the All add-ons category.
Video demos
Check out this excellent introduction video (1m 36s) by Lifehacker:[4]
A Kodi beginners guide (13m 27s) by forum user fredphoesh:[5]
Kodi includes full support for many different languages by default. Kodi's structure is such that if the language is not available, or not up-to-date, it can be created by signing up at the Kodi Translations Project.
Currently the existing supported languages are: Acadian French, Afrikaans, Albanian, American English, Amharic, Argentinian Spanish, Armenian, Asturian, Australian English, Azerbaijani, Basque, Belarusian, Bosnian, Brazilian Portuguese, Bulgarian, Burmese, Catalan, Chinese (Simplified), Chinese (Traditional), Croatian, Czech, Danish, Dari, Dutch, English, Esperanto, Estonian, European Portuguese, Faroese, Finnish, Galician, German, Greek, Hebrew, Hungarian, Icelandic, Indonesian, Italian, Japanese, Kannada, Korean, Latvian, Lithuanian, Macedonian, Malayam, Malay, Maltese, Maori, Metropolitan French, Mexican Spanish, Mongolian, New Zealand English, Norwegian, Ossetian, Peninsular Arabic, Peninsular Spanish, Persian, Polish, Romanian, Russian, Serbian (Cyrillic), Serbian (Latin), Silesian, Sinhala, Slovak, Slovenian, Swedish, Tajik, Tamil, Telugu, Thai, Turkish, Ukrainian, Uzbek, Vietnamese and Welsh.
Kodi is officially supported on a number of operating systems and hardware devices that are designed to be connected directly to a TV. Kodi runs well on what are relatively "underpowered" systems, thanks to hardware video decoding being common on nearly all supported platforms. These requirements don't include what might be required for some "advanced" features, such as PVR, which might require additional hardware.
Full featured versions of Kodi are available on a number of operating system platforms. Team Kodi strives to keep a consistent feature set and include the full Kodi experience for all versions, even those on low-powered devices.
Kodi for Windows runs natively on Windows Vista and higher. It is a 32-bit application but runs on 64-bit Windows and hardware as well, however it is not yet optimized for that architecture so there is no performance gain when running on 64-bit Windows. 1080p playback can be achieved on Windows based computers either via software decoding on the CPU if it's powerful enough, or by hardware accelerated video decoding.
Kodi for Android is a full port of the complete Kodi application to Google's Android operating-system, was first announced and its source code released publicly on 13 June 2012. This is a full port of Kodi's C++ and C source code with all its dependencies to Android with a build-system that was designed to handle multiple processor architectures, like ARM, MIPS, and x86 with the Android NDK (Native Development Kit for Android) without using a single line of Java, and the Kodi.APK is running natively under Android as a Native Activity application.
Kodi for iOS, which is a full port of Kodi to Apple's iOS operating-system, was first announced and released publicly on 20 January 2011. It supports both 720p and 1080p hardware accelerated video decoding of H.264 videos, and is compatible several Apple's iDevices that uses Apple A4 or higher SoC processors with a jailbroken iOS operating-system.
Kodi for Linux is primarily developed for Ubuntu Linux. Third-party packages for most other Linux distributions are however available, and it is also possible to compile Kodi from scratch for any Linux distribution as long as the pre-required dependency libraries are installed first.
↑Informer Technologies, Inc. 2013. “XBMC: Awards.”Mac Informer. August 1, 2013.
↑Fernández, José. 2013. (Senior Editor, Informer Technologies, Inc.) “Editorial review: XBMC for Mac.”Mac Informer. August 1, 2013. Archived by the Wayback Machine from the original on April 9, 2014. ‘In short, XBMC is still my favorite HTPC app. It looks great, works awesome and it has never caused a problem for me.’
Kodi is a non-profit and free software community driven open-source software project that is developed only by volunteers in their spare time without any monetary gain. The team of developers leading the development of Kodi, “Team Kodi”, encourage anyone and everyone to submit their own source code patches for new features and functions, improve existing ones, or fix bugs to the Kodi project.
Kodi's source code for all its supported platforms is made publicly available by Team Kodi under the open source GNU General Public License, Version 2 (or later) license. The group maintains a public Git repository on GitHub for this source code.
References
↑Languages.Kodi Weblate. Accessed on August 18, 2022.
Kodi Foundation
