Download Kodi 15.0 Beta 1

The first beta release of Kodi version 15.0 has come out. Formerly marketed as XBMC, Kodi is cross-platform media center software developed for Windows, OS X, Linux, Android, iOS, and the Raspberry Pi.

New in version 15.0, codenamed Isengard, includes adaptive seeking, which means that audio and video files can be jumped in larger or smaller steps. In addition, there is support for hevc h265 under Android on certain chipsets and the code is moving to C++11. However, this does result in an increase in the minimum specifications. For example, a minimum of OS X 10.7, iOS 5.1 or Android 4.2 is required for version 15. The release notes for beta 1 look like this:

Improvements so far

There were about 780 requests that contained multiple fixes, features, and improvements that went into the current 15.0 beta release. All these changes should sum up in an even better user experience while using Kodi. We could start summing up all the changes but there’s really no point in doing so. Instead will make a quick selection of the most important changes done.

• Reworked add-on manager that should give a better overview
• Chapter selection window that shows thumbs on where to skip to in the video
• Easier to navigate audio and subtitle selection list
• Addition of language add-ons which allow us to update the User-Interface text outside of regular releases
• Expansion of international options like time and date format, temperature and speed units.
• Skip steps (step forward & backwards) improvements.
• Tuxbox removal. Users of Enigma2 boxes can use the VUPlus PVR add-on
• Split PVR add-ons into separate projects which should allow updates through repo in the future
• Fix season art scraping on newly added seasons
• Immediately fetch updates from repository after Kodi version upgrade
• Improvement or installing new skins selection
• Remove legacy code pre-Frodo 11.0
• Add jump to first unwatched in TV section
• Remove certain codecs from our core code and made add-ons out of them. Audio encoders/decoders
• Removal of AFP filesystem support
• Windows DXVA HEVC hardware decoding support if driver and hardware support exist
• Added adaptive seeking through audio and video playback, also know as “skip steps”
• Android HEVC H.265 support for some chipsets
• Improve web server caching control
• External subtitles over UPnP can be enabled through the settings section
• Allow scanning of new sources and marking as watched during other library operations such as “update library”
• Allow different sort orders for different sort methods
• Start of integration binary add-ons and changing the build system around it
• Improved CC (Closed Captions) support for Live TV
• ffmpeg 2.6.2 update
• Removal remaining SDL code which was used in some areas.
• Changed code to C++11
• Variety of memleaks, segfaults, crashes and minor issues fixed
• Rescrape season art for newly added seasons
• Upgrade included webserver which should fix issues with remotes loosing connections
• On Android the system now handles the volume
• General improvements regarding code stability and performance in all areas
• General code clean-up in all areas to simplify adding future features

Mac OSX

• Minimum 10.7 Lion required
• Only OSX 64-bit builds provided by us, so no more 32bit builds
• Minimal MacOSX 10.10 SDK

iOS

• Minimal iOS 5.1 required
• Minimal iOS 8.1 SDK
• No more ATV2 builds

android

• Minimum Android 4.2 Jelly Bean MR1 required
• Android API 17 as minimum with SDK 14 and NDK 10e
• Removed the need for root/SU on Android. Some hardware/firmware might not like that. Please contact your hardware supplier
• Android PIL packaging fixed