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Kodi

COLLAB
Velocity2.5

Open-source media center and entertainment hub

kodi.tv ↗

Kodi's v22 'Piers' cycle is a long rebuild of playback, Blu-ray and PVR

media-centerblu-raypvrffmpegpre-release
◆Current state
Kodi is deep into the v22 'Piers' pre-release cycle, running alpha and beta builds while still patching v21 'Omega'. The v22 work concentrates on media playback foundations: Blu-ray menu support, a redesigned Movie Versions and Extras system, chapter handling, and a PVR overhaul with custom timers and one-minute EPG resolution. FFmpeg has been carried from 7 to 8.x across the cycle.
◆Where it's heading
This is a foundations release rather than a features release — FFmpeg 8, Python 3.14, and a MySQL charset migration to utf8mb4 are the kind of changes that pay off in what becomes possible later rather than in what users see now. Note that the alpha 3 and beta 1 entries are dated out of order in this feed, so the sequence here should not be read as the release order.
◆Prediction
Expect further v22 beta builds consolidating the Blu-ray and PVR work before a Piers release candidate; v21 patches will continue in parallel until it ships.

◆Recent moves

  1. 14d ago

    v22.0a3-Piers

    An alpha carrying TV show taglines, H264 AVCC subtitles, full IANA language tags and new JSON RPC methods, plus a MySQL charset migration to utf8mb4 with case-insensitive collation. The charset change is the one that touches every user with a shared library database.

    View source ↗
  2. 1mo ago

    v22.0b1-Piers

    The first v22 beta, focused on tightening the playback work: live bitrate infolabels, more accurate chapter changes, bookmarks folded into skip, and fixes for DTS-HD crashes and AC3 passthrough delay on live TV.

    View source ↗
  3. 4mo ago

    v22.0a2-Piers

    Alpha 2 moved the cycle to FFmpeg 8 and added HEIF/HEIC support, Season Plot and original-language metadata. It also lifted the 256-track limit on streams, which matters for large multi-audio rips.

    View source ↗
  4. 9mo ago

    v21.3-Omega

    A maintenance release on the shipping v21 line, adding Xbox One HDR support and fixing Blu-ray playback on Linux plus library rescan speed. Real user-facing work, but on the branch v22 is replacing.

    View source ↗
  5. 11mo ago

    Kodi v22 opens with Blu-ray menus, PVR overhaul and Movie Versions redesign

    ⚡ SPARK

    The first Piers alpha, and where the whole v22 feature set was declared: Blu-ray menu support, a full Movie Versions and Extras redesign, audio book chapters, a PVR overhaul and GSoC-derived game shaders. Everything since has been refinement of this list.

    View source ↗
  6. 1y ago

    v21.2-Omega

    A v21 backport rollup — Windows audio-device and MAC discovery crashes, remote keymapping, Android controller maps. Housekeeping on the stable branch.

    View source ↗