Kodi (formerly XBMC) is a

free and open-source Free and open-source software (FOSS) is software available under a Software license, license that grants users the right to use, modify, and distribute the software modified or not to everyone free of charge. FOSS is an inclusive umbrella term ...

media player Media player may refer to: *Digital media player, home appliances that play digital media *Media player software, software that plays digital media *Portable media player, portable hardware that plays digital media *Windows Media Player Windo ...

and technology convergence software application developed by the Kodi Foundation, a

non-profit A nonprofit organization (NPO), also known as a nonbusiness entity, nonprofit institution, not-for-profit organization, or simply a nonprofit, is a non-governmental (private) legal entity organized and operated for a collective, public, or so ...

technology

consortium A consortium () is an association of two or more individuals, companies, organizations, or governments (or any combination of these entities) with the objective of participating in a common activity or pooling their resources for achieving a ...

. Kodi is available for multiple operating systems and hardware platforms, with a software

10-foot user interface In computing, 10-foot user interface, 10-foot UI or 3-meter user interface is a graphical user interface designed for televisions. Compared to desktop computer and smartphone user interfaces, it uses text and other interface elements that are ...

for use with televisions and

remote control A remote control, also known colloquially as a remote or clicker, is an consumer electronics, electronic device used to operate another device from a distance, usually wirelessly. In consumer electronics, a remote control can be used to operat ...

s. It allows users to play and view most streaming media, such as videos, music,

podcast A podcast is a Radio program, program made available in digital format for download over the Internet. Typically, a podcast is an Episode, episodic series of digital audio Computer file, files that users can download to a personal device or str ...

s, and videos from the Internet, as well as all common

digital media In mass communication, digital media is any media (communication), communication media that operates in conjunction with various encoded machine-readable data formats. Digital content can be created, viewed, distributed, modified, listened to, an ...

files from local and network

storage media Data storage is the recording (storing) of information (data) in a storage medium. Handwriting, phonographic recording, magnetic tape, and optical discs are all examples of storage media. Biological molecules such as RNA and DNA are cons ...

, or

TV gateway A TV gateway (also called network TV tuner) is a television headend to a network UPnP router that receives live digital video broadcast (DVB) MPEG transport streams (channels) from terrestrial aerials, satellite dishes, or cable feeds and convert ...

viewer. Kodi was initially designed as a

multi-platform Within computing, cross-platform software (also called multi-platform software, platform-agnostic software, or platform-independent software) is computer software that is designed to work in several computing platforms. Some cross-platform softw ...

home-theater PC (HTPC) application that has grown to become a multi-purpose

technological convergence Technological convergence is the tendency for technologies that were originally unrelated to become more closely integrated and even unified as they develop and advance. For example, watches, telephones, television, computers, and social media ...

platform. It is customizable: skins can change its appearance, and plug-ins allow users to access

streaming media Streaming media refers to multimedia delivered through a Computer network, network for playback using a Media player (disambiguation), media player. Media is transferred in a ''stream'' of Network packet, packets from a Server (computing), ...

content via online services such as

Amazon Prime Video Amazon Prime Video, known simply as Prime Video, is an American subscription video on-demand over-the-top streaming television service owned by Amazon. The service primarily distributes films and television series produced or co-produced by ...

, Crackle,

Pandora In Greek mythology, Pandora was the first human woman created by Hephaestus on the instructions of Zeus. As Hesiod related it, each god cooperated by giving her unique gifts. Her other name—inscribed against her figure on a white-ground '' ky ...

Napster Napster was an American proprietary peer-to-peer (P2P) file sharing application primarily associated with digital audio file distribution. Founded by Shawn Fanning and Sean Parker, the platform originally launched on June 1, 1999. Audio shared ...

Spotify Spotify (; ) is a List of companies of Sweden, Swedish Music streaming service, audio streaming and media service provider founded on 23 April 2006 by Daniel Ek and Martin Lorentzon. , it is one of the largest providers of music streaming services ...

, and

YouTube YouTube is an American social media and online video sharing platform owned by Google. YouTube was founded on February 14, 2005, by Steve Chen, Chad Hurley, and Jawed Karim who were three former employees of PayPal. Headquartered in ...

. The later versions also have a personal video-recorder (PVR) graphical front end for receiving live television with

electronic program guide Electronic programming guides (EPGs) and interactive programming guides (IPGs) are menu-based systems that provide users of television, radio, and other media applications with continuously updated menus that display scheduling information fo ...

(EPG) and high-definition

digital video recorder A digital video recorder (DVR), also referred to as a personal video recorder (PVR) particularly in Canadian and British English, is an electronic device that records video in a digital format to a disk drive, USB flash drive, SD memory card, SS ...

(DVR) support. The software was originally created in 2002 as an independently developed homebrew media player application named Xbox Media Player for the first-generation

Xbox Xbox is a video gaming brand that consists of four main home video game console lines, as well as application software, applications (games), the streaming media, streaming service Xbox Cloud Gaming, and online services such as the Xbox networ ...

game console, changing its name in 2004 to Xbox Media Center (abbreviated as XBMC, which was adopted as the official name in 2008) Review of XBMC in Hardcore Gamer Magazine and was later made available under the name XBMC as a native application for Android,

Linux Linux ( ) is a family of open source Unix-like operating systems based on the Linux kernel, an kernel (operating system), operating system kernel first released on September 17, 1991, by Linus Torvalds. Linux is typically package manager, pac ...

BSD The Berkeley Software Distribution (BSD), also known as Berkeley Unix or BSD Unix, is a discontinued Unix operating system developed and distributed by the Computer Systems Research Group (CSRG) at the University of California, Berkeley, beginni ...

macOS macOS, previously OS X and originally Mac OS X, is a Unix, Unix-based operating system developed and marketed by Apple Inc., Apple since 2001. It is the current operating system for Apple's Mac (computer), Mac computers. With ...

iOS Ios, Io or Nio (, ; ; locally Nios, Νιός) is a Greek island in the Cyclades group in the Aegean Sea. Ios is a hilly island with cliffs down to the sea on most sides. It is situated halfway between Naxos and Santorini. It is about long an ...

tvOS tvOS (formerly Apple TV Software) is an operating system developed by Apple for the Apple TV, a digital media player. In the first-generation Apple TV, Apple TV Software was based on Mac OS X. The software for the second-generation and later ...

, and

Microsoft Windows Windows is a Product lining, product line of Proprietary software, proprietary graphical user interface, graphical operating systems developed and marketed by Microsoft. It is grouped into families and subfamilies that cater to particular sec ...

-based operating systems. Then the project was renamed again from XBMC to "Kodi" in July 2014 with the release of Kodi 14 (instead of the expected XBMC 14 release), while still keeping "XBMC Foundation" as the name for its legal entity that owns Kodi's code as well as directly related trademarks and logos. Because of its open source and

cross-platform Within computing, cross-platform software (also called multi-platform software, platform-agnostic software, or platform-independent software) is computer software that is designed to work in several Computing platform, computing platforms. Some ...

nature, with its core code written in C++, modified versions of Kodi XBMC together with

JeOS Just enough operating system (JeOS, pronounced "juice" according to SUSE S.A., SUSE) is a paradigm for customizing operating systems to fit the needs of a particular application such as for a software appliance. The platform only includes the oper ...

have been used as a

software appliance A software appliance is a software application combined with just enough operating system (JeOS) to run optimally on industry-standard hardware (typically a server) or in a virtual machine. It is a software distribution or firmware that impleme ...

suite or

software framework In computer programming, a software framework is a software abstraction that provides generic functionality which developers can extend with custom code to create applications. It establishes a standard foundation for building and deploying soft ...

in a variety of devices, including

smart TV A smart TV, also known as a connected TV (CTV or, rarely, CoTV), is a traditional television set with integrated Internet and interactive Web 2.0 features that allow users to stream music and videos, browse the internet, and view photos. Smart T ...

set-top box A set-top box (STB), also known as a cable converter box, cable box, receiver, or simply box, and historically television decoder or a converter, is an information appliance device that generally contains a Tuner (radio)#Television, TV tuner inpu ...

es, digital signage, hotel television systems, network connected media players and embedded systems based on

armhf ARM (stylised in lowercase as arm, formerly an acronym for Advanced RISC Machines and originally Acorn RISC Machine) is a family of RISC instruction set architectures (ISAs) for computer processors. Arm Holdings develops the ISAs and lice ...

platforms like

Raspberry Pi Raspberry Pi ( ) is a series of small single-board computers (SBCs) developed in the United Kingdom by the Raspberry Pi Foundation in collaboration with Broadcom Inc., Broadcom. To commercialize the product and support its growing demand, the ...

. Derivative applications such as

MediaPortal MediaPortal is an open-source media player and digital video recorder software project, often considered an alternative to Windows Media Center. It provides a 10-foot user interface for performing typical PVR/TiVo functionality, including playi ...

and

Plex Plex Inc. is an American software company that runs its namesake over-the-top ad-supported streaming television service and develops media server software that lets users stream their personal media collections to their devices. The company is ...

have been spun off from XBMC or Kodi, as well as just enough operating systems like

LibreELEC LibreELEC (short for Libre Embedded Linux Entertainment Center) is a non-profit fork of OpenELEC as an open source software appliance, a Linux-based Just enough operating system for the Kodi media player. This fork of OpenELEC announced in Marc ...

. Kodi has attracted negative attention from the news media and law enforcement agencies due to some add-ons as plug-ins made available by third parties for the software that facilitates unauthorized access and playback of media content by different means of

copyright infringement Copyright infringement (at times referred to as piracy) is the use of Copyright#Scope, works protected by copyright without permission for a usage where such permission is required, thereby infringing certain exclusive rights granted to the c ...

, as well as sellers of

digital media player A digital media player (also known as a streaming device or streaming box) is a type of consumer electronics device designed for the storage, playback, or viewing of digital media content. They are typically designed to be integrated into a h ...

s that pre-load them with third-party add-ons for the express purpose of making

piracy Piracy is an act of robbery or criminal violence by ship or boat-borne attackers upon another ship or a coastal area, typically with the goal of stealing cargo and valuable goods, or taking hostages. Those who conduct acts of piracy are call ...

easy. The XBMC Foundation have expressed that they do not endorse the use of third-party add-ons that are designed for the purpose of piracy, and it takes active steps to disassociate and distance the Kodi project from third-party add-ons that violate copyright. These steps include blocking such add-ons and banning all discussions about piracy in their community forums, as well as threatening legal action against those using the Kodi

trademark A trademark (also written trade mark or trade-mark) is a form of intellectual property that consists of a word, phrase, symbol, design, or a combination that identifies a Good (economics and accounting), product or Service (economics), service f ...

s or logos to promote add-ons and digital media players that come with them pre-installed with such add-ons.

Overview

Kodi supports many common audio, video, and image formats, playlists, audio visualizations (FishBMC, Goom, Matrix, MilkDrop,

Shadertoy Shadertoy is an online community and tool for creating and sharing shaders through WebGL, used for both learning and teaching 3D computer graphics in a web browser. Overview Shadertoy is an online community and platform for computer graphic ...

), slideshows, weather forecast reporting, and third-party plugins. It is network-capable (internet and

home network Home Network is a Television in Canada, Canadian English-language Discretionary service, discretionary cable television, cable and satellite television, satellite specialty channel owned by Corus Entertainment. Home Network broadcasts programs r ...

shares). Unlike other media center applications such as

Windows Media Center Windows Media Center (WMC) is a discontinued digital video recorder and media player created by Microsoft. Media Center was first introduced to Windows in 2002 on Windows XP Media Center Edition (MCE). It was included in Home Premium and U ...

and

MythTV MythTV is a free and open-source home entertainment application with a simplified "10-foot user interface" design for the living room TV. It turns a computer with the necessary hardware into a network streaming digital video recorder, a digital ...

, Kodi does not include its own internal digital TV-tuner code for

Live TV Live television is a television production broadcast in real-time, as events happen, in the present. In a secondary meaning, it may refer to streaming television where all viewers watch the same stream simultaneously, rather than watching video o ...

or DVR/PVR recording functionality, as instead it acts as a unified DVR/PVR front-end with an EPG TV-Guide

graphical user interface A graphical user interface, or GUI, is a form of user interface that allows user (computing), users to human–computer interaction, interact with electronic devices through Graphics, graphical icon (computing), icons and visual indicators such ...

(GUI) interface which, via a common

application programming interface An application programming interface (API) is a connection between computers or between computer programs. It is a type of software Interface (computing), interface, offering a service to other pieces of software. A document or standard that des ...

(API), abstracts and supports multiple back-ends via PVR client add-ons from third parties, with those running either locally on the same machine or over the network. Plug-ins, using either C/C++ programming languages to create binary add-ons or the Python scripting language to create Script Addons, expand Kodi to include features such as television program guides,

Hulu Hulu (, ) is an American Subscription business model, subscription streaming media service owned by Disney Streaming, a subsidiary of the Disney Entertainment segment of the Walt Disney Company. It was launched on October 29, 2007, initially as ...

Netflix Netflix is an American subscription video on-demand over-the-top streaming service. The service primarily distributes original and acquired films and television shows from various genres, and it is available internationally in multiple lang ...

Veoh Veoh () was an American video-sharing website, created in September 2005 by Dmitry Shapiro and Ted Dunning. Originally launched as a virtual television network application, Veoh re-established itself as a video-sharing website in March 2006. D ...

, online movie trailer support, and Pandora Radio and

streaming. Kodi also functions as a game launcher on any operating system. Kodi's

source code In computing, source code, or simply code or source, is a plain text computer program written in a programming language. A programmer writes the human readable source code to control the behavior of a computer. Since a computer, at base, only ...

is distributed as open source under the

GNU General Public License The GNU General Public Licenses (GNU GPL or simply GPL) are a series of widely used free software licenses, or ''copyleft'' licenses, that guarantee end users the freedom to run, study, share, or modify the software. The GPL was the first ...

(GPL-2.0-or-later), it is governed by the tax-exempt registered non-profit US organization, XBMC Foundation, and is owned and developed by a global free software community of unpaid volunteers. Even though the original XBMC project no longer develops or supports XBMC for the Xbox, XBMC on the Xbox is still available via the third-party developer spin-off project " XBMC4Xbox", which forked the Xbox version of the software and completely took over the development and support of XBMC for the old Xbox. The ending of Xbox support by the original project was also the reason that it was renamed "XBMC" from the old "Xbox Media Center" name, and why it later was renamed "Kodi". The Xbox version of XBMC had the ability to launch console games, and homebrew applications such as

emulators In computing, an emulator is hardware or software that enables one computer system (called the ''host'') to behave like another computer system (called the ''guest''). An emulator typically enables the host system to run software or use perip ...

. Since the XBMC for Xbox version was never distributed, endorsed, or supported by Microsoft, it always required a

modchip A modchip (short for modification chip) is a small electronic device used to alter or disable artificial restrictions of computers or entertainment devices. Modchips are mainly used in video game consoles, but also in some DVD or Blu-ray players ...

or softmod exploit to run on the Xbox game-console.

Hardware requirements

Kodi has greater basic hardware requirements than traditional 2D style software applications: it needs a 3D capable graphics hardware controller for all rendering. Powerful 3D GPU chips are common today in most modern computer platforms, including many

es, and XBMC, now Kodi, was from the start designed to be otherwise very resource-efficient, for being as powerful and versatile a framework as it is. It runs well on what (by

Intel Atom Intel Atom is a line of IA-32 and x86-64 instruction set ultra-low-voltage processors by Intel Corporation designed to reduce electric consumption and power dissipation in comparison with ordinary processors of the Intel Core series. Atom is m ...

standards) are relatively underpowered OpenGL 1.3 (with

GLSL OpenGL Shading Language (GLSL) is a high-level shading language with a syntax based on the C programming language. It was created by the OpenGL ARB (OpenGL Architecture Review Board) to give developers more direct control of the graphics pipe ...

support),

OpenGL ES 2.0 OpenGL for Embedded Systems (OpenGL ES or GLES) is a subset of the OpenGL computer graphics rendering application programming interface (API) for rendering 2D and 3D computer graphics such as those used by video games, typically hardware-accelerate ...

or Direct3D (DirectX) 9.0 capable systems that are

IA-32 IA-32 (short for "Intel Architecture, 32-bit", commonly called ''i386'') is the 32-bit version of the x86 instruction set architecture, designed by Intel and first implemented in the i386, 80386 microprocessor in 1985. IA-32 is the first incarn ...

x86 x86 (also known as 80x86 or the 8086 family) is a family of complex instruction set computer (CISC) instruction set architectures initially developed by Intel, based on the 8086 microprocessor and its 8-bit-external-bus variant, the 8088. Th ...

x86-64 x86-64 (also known as x64, x86_64, AMD64, and Intel 64) is a 64-bit extension of the x86 instruction set architecture, instruction set. It was announced in 1999 and first available in the AMD Opteron family in 2003. It introduces two new ope ...

ARM In human anatomy, the arm refers to the upper limb in common usage, although academically the term specifically means the upper arm between the glenohumeral joint (shoulder joint) and the elbow joint. The distal part of the upper limb between ...

(AArch32 and AArch64),

RISC-V RISC-V (pronounced "risk-five") is an open standard instruction set architecture (ISA) based on established reduced instruction set computer (RISC) principles. The project commenced in 2010 at the University of California, Berkeley. It transfer ...

, or

PowerPC G4 PowerPC G4 is a designation formerly used by Apple Inc., Apple to describe a ''fourth generation'' of 32-bit PowerPC microprocessors. Apple has applied this name to various (though closely related) processor models from Freescale Semiconductor, Fr ...

or later

CPU A central processing unit (CPU), also called a central processor, main processor, or just processor, is the primary processor in a given computer. Its electronic circuitry executes instructions of a computer program, such as arithmetic, log ...

based. When software decoding of a full HD

1080p 1080p (1920 × 1080 progressively displayed pixels; also known as Full HD or FHD, and BT.709) is a set of HDTV high-definition video modes characterized by 1,920 pixels displayed across the screen horizontally and 1,080 pixels down the sc ...

high-definition and high bit-rate video is performed by the system

, a

dual-core A multi-core processor (MCP) is a microprocessor on a single integrated circuit (IC) with two or more separate central processing units (CPUs), called ''cores'' to emphasize their multiplicity (for example, ''dual-core'' or ''quad-core''). Ea ...

2 GHz or faster CPU is required in order to allow for perfectly smooth playback without dropping frames or giving playback a jerky appearance. Kodi can, however, offload most of the video decoding process onto graphics hardware controller or embedded video processing circuits that support one of the following types of hardware-accelerated

video decoding A video decoder is an electronic circuit, often contained within a single integrated circuit chip, that converts base-band analog video signals to digital video. Video decoders commonly allow programmable control over video characteristics such as ...

: Google's MediaCodec API for Android, Intel's VAAPI, Nvidia's

VDPAU Video Decode and Presentation API for Unix (VDPAU) is a royalty-free application programming interface (API) as well as its implementation as free and open-source library () distributed under the MIT License. VDPAU is also supported by Nvidia. Th ...

API, AMD's XvBA API, Microsoft's

DXVA DirectX Video Acceleration (DXVA) is a Microsoft API specification for the Microsoft Windows and Xbox 360 platforms that allows video decoding to be hardware-accelerated. The pipeline allows certain CPU-intensive operations such as iDCT, motion ...

API, Apple's VDADecoder/VideoToolbox APIs, and the Khronos Group's OpenMAX API, AMLogic VPU,

Freescale Freescale Semiconductor, Inc. was an American semiconductor manufacturer. It was created by the divestiture of the Semiconductor Products Sector of Motorola in 2004. Freescale focused their integrated circuit products on the automotive, embedde ...

's i.MX6x series VPU, and

's GPU MMAL. By taking advantage of such hardware-accelerated video decoding, Kodi can play back most videos on many inexpensive, low-performance systems, as long as they contain a supported VPU or GPU.

Core features

Live TV with EPG and PVR/DVR frontend

The TV feature allows users to watch some TV broadcasts that may be transmitted by a

digital terrestrial television Digital terrestrial television (DTTV, DTT, or DTTB) is a technology for terrestrial television, in which television stations broadcast television content in a digital signal, digital format. Digital terrestrial television is a major technologica ...

asymmetric digital subscriber line Asymmetric digital subscriber line (ADSL) is a type of digital subscriber line (DSL) technology, a data communications technology that enables faster data transmission over copper telephone lines than a conventional voiceband modem can provide ...

(ADSL), cable, or Internet streaming, depending on the chosen add-on. From version 12.0 (Frodo), Kodi has a native Live TV with EPG (Electronic Program Guide) and DVR (Digital Video Recorder) features with a PVR (Personal Video Recorder) frontend GUI, which enables

video capture Video capture is the process of converting an analog video signal—such as that produced by a video camera, DVD player, or television tuner—to digital video and sending it to local storage or to external circuitry. The resulting digital data ...

and playback to and from a

hard disk drive A hard disk drive (HDD), hard disk, hard drive, or fixed disk is an electro-mechanical data storage device that stores and retrieves digital data using magnetic storage with one or more rigid rapidly rotating hard disk drive platter, pla ...

with PVR Client Addons for most popular PVR backends (

TV tuner card A TV tuner card is a kind of television tuner that allows television signals to be received by a computer. Most TV tuners also function as video capture cards, allowing them to record television programs onto a hard disk much like the digital ...

server). These addons can be installed separately as plugins in Kodi. The PVR backend can either be a DVR set-top box connected to the network or a PC with a digital video recorder software. This software can run on the same computer or on other computers on the same network. The PVR software can turn computers or other appliances into DVRs. The operating system can be

, and Android devices. Several types of PVR Client Addons are available: * addons used for many PVR software and hardware such as Argus TV, DVBLogic DVBLink,

DVBViewer DVBViewer is proprietary, commercial software for viewing & recording of DVB TV & Radio using a TV tuner card or box and a Media Center for viewing Music, Video and Pictures. Among its other features are an Electronic Program Guide (EPG), remote ...

, ForTheRecord, Tvheadend,

NextPVR GB-PVR was a PVR (personal video recorder aka digital video recorder) application, running on Microsoft Windows, whose main function was scheduling TV recordings and playing back live TV. GB-PVR is no longer under active development and has been ...

(formerly GB-PVR), VDR,

, * addons used for Enigma2-based DVR set-top boxes such as

Dreambox Dreambox is a series of Linux-powered Digital Video Broadcasting, DVB DVB-S, satellite, DVB-T, terrestrial and DVB-C, cable digital television receivers (set-top boxes), produced by Germany, German multimedia vendor Dream Multimedia. History ...

DBox2 The DBox is a Digital Video Broadcasting, DVB DVB-S, satellite and DVB-C, cable digital television integrated receiver decoder (set-top box). They were distributed widely for use with Pay TV, Pay television channels. It was commissioned by t ...

, and Vu+., * addons used for direct LAN connection to network-attached TV-Tuners such as

HDHomeRun HDHomeRun is a network-attached digital television tuner box, produced by the company SiliconDust USA, Inc. Overview Unlike standard set-top box (or set-top unit) appliances, the HDHomeRun does not have a video output that connects directly to ...

, PCTV Systems Broadway,

VBox Home TV Gateway VBox Home TV gateway is a Computer network, network-enabled live TV tuner and Digital video recorder, PVR HDTV set-top-box produced by VBox Communications Ltd. The VBox Home TV Gateway is also known as: * V@Home TV Gateway PVR * V@Home TV Gateway ...

, and Njoy Digital AnySee N7 DVB-S2 Network-Tuner. * addons used for the Internet-based television providers

FilmOn FilmOn is an Internet-based television provider owned by FilmOn.TV Networks Inc. Alki David had founded FilmOn.TV Networks in 2006. The company was involved in a prolonged legal case concerning streaming rights with CBS, Fox, and NBC between 201 ...

(FilmOn.TV Networks), and Stalker Middleware, * addons used for

IPTV Internet Protocol television (IPTV), also called TV over broadband, is the service delivery of television over Internet Protocol (IP) networks. Usually sold and run by a Telephone company, telecom provider, it consists of broadcast live telev ...

in general, e.g. the simple PVR client addon.

Video playback

Video Library

The Video Library, one of the Kodi

metadata Metadata (or metainformation) is "data that provides information about other data", but not the content of the data itself, such as the text of a message or the image itself. There are many distinct types of metadata, including: * Descriptive ...

databases, is a key feature of 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 (e.g.,

web scraping Web scraping, web harvesting, or web data extraction is data scraping used for data extraction, extracting data from websites. Web scraping software may directly access the World Wide Web using the Hypertext Transfer Protocol or a web browser. W ...

sites like IMDb, TheMovieDB, TheTVDB), and 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.

Video player cores

Kodi uses one multimedia video player "core" for video-playback. This video-player "core" for video-playback is an in-house developed cross-platform media player, "DVDPlayer", which was designed to play back

DVD-Video DVD-Video is a consumer video format used to store digital video on DVDs. DVD-Video was the dominant consumer home video format in most of the world in the 2000s. As of 2024, it competes with the high-definition Blu-ray Disc, while both rece ...

movies, and this includes support native for DVD-menus, (based on the free open source libraries code

libdvdcss libdvdcss (or libdvdcss2 in some repositories) is a free and open-source software library for accessing and unscrambling DVDs encrypted with the Content Scramble System (CSS). libdvdcss is part of the VideoLAN project and is used by VLC media p ...

and libdvdnav). This

FFmpeg FFmpeg is a free and open-source software project consisting of a suite of libraries and programs for handling video, audio, and other multimedia files and streams. At its core is the command-line ffmpeg tool itself, designed for processing vide ...

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 and IMG DVD-images or DVD-Video (

IFO Ifo or IFO may refer to: Places * Ifo, Ogun State, a local government area in Ogun State, Nigeria * Ivano-Frankivsk International Airport in Ivano-Frankivsk, Ukraine, their IATA airport code * Ifo Refugee Camp, UNHCR refugee camp in Kenya * If ...

VOB VOB (for video object) is the container format in DVD-Video media. VOB can contain digital video, digital audio, subtitles, DVD menus and navigation contents multiplexed together into a stream form. Files in VOB format may be encrypted. File fo ...

/ BUP) images (even directly from uncompressed RAR and ZIP archives), from either local harddrive storage or network-share storage.

Audio playback

Music Library

The Music Library, one of the Kodi metadata databases, is another key feature of 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 Fan art or fanart is artwork created by Fan (person), fans of a work of fiction or celebrity depicting events, Character (arts), character, or other aspect of the work. As fan labor, fan art refers to artworks that are not created, commissione ...

backdrops as background wallpapers.

Digital picture/image display

Kodi handles all common digital picture/image formats with the options of panning/zooming and slideshow with the

Ken Burns effect The Ken Burns effect is a type of panning and zooming effect used in film and video production from non-consecutive still images. The name derives from extensive use of the technique by American documentarian Ken Burns. This technique had also bee ...

, with the use of CxImage open source library code. XBMC can handle CBZ (ZIP) and CBR (RAR)

comic book archive A comic book archive or comic book reader file (also called sequential image file) is a type of archive file for the purpose of sequential viewing of images, commonly for comic books. The idea was made popular by the CDisplay sequential image vie ...

files, this feature lets users view/read, browse and zoom the pictures of comics pages these contain without uncompressing them first.

Games Manager and game console emulators

Development was in progress on new core features integrating a built-in Games Manager and Game Launcher front-end GUI with a Games Library, and Game Console Emulator API into XBMC. The code for all was being developed in a separate branch to be incorporated into the mainline tree. The Games Manager, once integrated into Kodi, provides a unified

games A game is a Structure, structured type of play (activity), play usually undertaken for entertainment or fun, and sometimes used as an Educational game, educational tool. Many games are also considered to be Work (human activity), work (such as p ...

manager library and GUI front-end launcher with online metadata web scraping support for information about the games. It also introduces Game Addons as new type of addon with just-in-time emulator installation. Adding a Games Library for Game Metadata, exposing info (current level, number of lives, number of coins earned, etc.) to GUI, as well as extending the Addon API to support Game Client Addons, supporting Kodi's VFS (Virtual File System). It also provides a joystick and gamepad abstraction layer for common joystick API and input clients.

RetroPlayer

Also under development is the RetroPlayer

video game console emulator A video game console emulator is a type of emulator that allows a computing device to emulate a video game console's hardware and play its games on the emulating platform. More often than not, emulators carry additional features that surpass ...

( ROMs) interface, supporting the libretro API and emulator cores (from the RetroArch project, which is its reference front-end). Libretro itself is a modular multi-system game/emulator system designed to be fast, lightweight, and portable. RetroPlayer supports emulators for popular retro game consoles, including

Atari 2600 The Atari 2600 is a home video game console developed and produced by Atari, Inc. Released in September 1977 as the Atari Video Computer System (Atari VCS), it popularized microprocessor-based hardware and games stored on swappable ROM cartridg ...

Lynx A lynx ( ; : lynx or lynxes) is any of the four wikt:extant, extant species (the Canada lynx, Iberian lynx, Eurasian lynx and the bobcat) within the medium-sized wild Felidae, cat genus ''Lynx''. The name originated in Middle Engl ...

Jaguar The jaguar (''Panthera onca'') is a large felidae, cat species and the only extant taxon, living member of the genus ''Panthera'' that is native to the Americas. With a body length of up to and a weight of up to , it is the biggest cat spe ...

Nintendo Entertainment System The Nintendo Entertainment System (NES) is an 8-bit home video game console developed and marketed by Nintendo. It was first released in Japan on 15 July 1983 as the and was later released as the redesigned NES in several test markets in the ...

Super NES The Super Nintendo Entertainment System, commonly shortened to Super Nintendo, Super NES or SNES, is a 16-bit home video game console developed by Nintendo that was released in 1990 in Japan, 1991 in North America, 1992 in Europe and Oceania a ...

Nintendo 64 The (N64) is a home video game console developed and marketed by Nintendo. It was released in Japan on June 23, 1996, in North America on September 29, 1996, and in Europe and Australia on March 1, 1997. As the successor to the Super Nintendo E ...

Game Boy The is a handheld game console developed by Nintendo, launched in the Japanese home market on April 21, 1989, followed by North America later that year and other territories from 1990 onwards. Following the success of the Game & Watch single-ga ...

PlayStation is a video gaming brand owned and produced by Sony Interactive Entertainment (SIE), a division of Japanese conglomerate Sony. Its flagship products consists of a series of home video game consoles produced under the brand; it also consists ...

Master System The is an 8-bit Third generation of video game consoles, third-generation home video game console manufactured and developed by Sega. It was originally a remodeled export version of the Sega Mark III, the third iteration of the SG-1000 series ...

Genesis Genesis may refer to: Religion * Book of Genesis, the first book of the biblical scriptures of both Judaism and Christianity, describing the creation of the Earth and of humankind * Genesis creation narrative, the first several chapters of the Bo ...

Sega CD The Sega CD, known as in most regions outside North America and Brazil, is a CD-ROM accessory and format for the Sega Genesis produced by Sega as part of the fourth generation of video game consoles. Originally released in November 1991, it ca ...

, and

Game Gear The is an 8-bit Fourth generation of video game consoles, fourth-generation handheld game console released by Sega on October 6, 1990 in Japan, in April 1991 throughout North America and Europe, and in 1992 in Australia. The Game Gear primarily ...

, plus multiple

arcade video game An arcade video game is an arcade game that takes player input from its controls, processes it through electrical or computerized components, and displays output to an electronic monitor or similar display. All arcade video games are coin-oper ...

s via

MAME MAME (formerly an acronym of Multiple Arcade Machine Emulator) is a free and open-source emulator designed to emulate the hardware of arcade games, video game consoles, old computers and other systems in software on modern personal computers and ...

and Final Burn Alpha, as well as

ScummVM Script Creation Utility for Maniac Mansion Virtual Machine (ScummVM) is a set of game engine recreations. Originally designed to play LucasArts adventure games that use the SCUMM system, it also supports a variety of non-SCUMM games by companies l ...

and

MS-DOS MS-DOS ( ; acronym for Microsoft Disk Operating System, also known as Microsoft DOS) is an operating system for x86-based personal computers mostly developed by Microsoft. Collectively, MS-DOS, its rebranding as IBM PC DOS, and a few op ...

based games. From version 18 Kodi supports a player core, Retroplayer, to play games using game emulator addons available for libretro.

Audio, video, and pictures media formats

Kodi can play media from CD/DVD media using an internal

DVD-ROM The DVD (common abbreviation for digital video disc or digital versatile disc) is a digital optical disc data storage format. It was invented and developed in 1995 and first released on November 1, 1996, in Japan. The medium can store any kin ...

drive. It can play media from an internal built-in

and SMB/SAMBA/CIFS shares (Windows File-Sharing), NFS, or stream them over

ReplayTV ReplayTV was a former DVR company that from 1999 until 2005, produced a brand of digital video recorders (DVR), a term synonymous with ''personal video recorder'' (PVR). It is a consumer video device which allows users to capture television prog ...

DVRs/PVRs,

Universal Plug and Play Universal Plug and Play (UPnP) is a set of networking protocols on the Internet Protocol (IP) that permits networked devices, such as personal computers, printers, Internet gateways, Wi-Fi access points and mobile devices, to seamlessly discover ...

(UPnP) or Digital Living Network Alliance (DLNA) shares, or stream

iTunes iTunes is a media player, media library, and mobile device management (MDM) utility developed by Apple. It is used to purchase, play, download and organize digital multimedia on personal computers running the macOS and Windows operating s ...

-shares via

Digital Audio Access Protocol The Digital Audio Access Protocol (DAAP) is the proprietary protocol introduced by Apple in its iTunes software to share media across a local network. DAAP addresses the same problems for Apple as the UPnP AV standards address for members of the ...

(DAAP). Kodi can 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 Pandora is a subscription-based music streaming service owned by the broadcasting corporation Sirius XM that is based in Oakland, California in the United States. The service carries a focus on recommendations based on the " Music Genome Proje ...

). Kodi includes the option to submit music usage statistics to

Last.fm Last.fm is a music website founded in the United Kingdom in 2002. Utilizing a music recommender system known as "Audioscrobbler", Last.fm creates a detailed profile of each user's musical preferences by recording the details of the tracks they ...

and

Libre.fm Libre.fm is a music community website that aims to provide a free software replacement for last.fm. The website was founded in 2009 by Matt Lee. Libre.fm can optionally store a user's listening habits using information sent to the website's se ...

. It has music/video-playlist features, picture/image-slideshow functions, an MP3+CDG

karaoke is a type of interactive entertainment system usually offered in nightclubs and bars, where people sing along to pre-recorded accompaniment using a microphone. Its musical content is an instrumental rendition of a well-known popular song. I ...

function and many audio-visualizations and

screensaver A screensaver (or screen saver) is a computer program that blanks the display screen or fills it with moving images or patterns when the computer has been idle for a designated time. The original purpose of screensavers was to prevent phosphor s ...

s. Kodi can upscale/upconvert all

standard-definition Standard-definition television (SDTV; also standard definition or SD) is a television system that uses a resolution that is not considered to be either high-definition television, high or enhanced definition. ''Standard'' refers to offering a ...

resolution videos and output them to 720p, 1080i, and 1080p high-definition resolutions. Under Microsoft Windows, Kodi supports Directsound and WASAPI; since

WASAPI Windows Vista (formerly codenamed Windows "Longhorn") has many significant new features compared with previous Microsoft Windows versions, covering most aspects of the operating system. In addition to the new user interface, security capabilities ...

performs no mixing or resampling, it provides best audio quality.

Format support

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 audio, or encode to AC3 in real time from movies directly to

S/PDIF S/PDIF (Sony/Philips Digital Interface) is a type of digital audio interface used in consumer audio equipment to output audio over relatively short distances. The signal is transmitted over either a coaxial cable using RCA connector, RCA or BN ...

digital output to an external audio-

amplifier An amplifier, electronic amplifier or (informally) amp is an electronic device that can increase the magnitude of a signal (a time-varying voltage or current). It is a two-port electronic circuit that uses electric power from a power su ...

/ receiver for decoding.

Addons Manager, addons and plugins

Kodi features several open APIs to enable

third-party developer A video game developer is a software developer specializing in video game development – the process and related disciplines of creating video games. A game developer can range from one person who undertakes all tasks to a large business with em ...

s to create capabilities which extend Kodi with a multitude of addons, such as audio and video streaming plugins for online sources, screensavers, skins and themes, visualizations, weather forecasts, web interfaces, web scrapers, widget scripts, and more. Kodi developers encourage users to make and submit their own addons to expand media content and

value-added service A value-added service (VAS) is a popular telecommunications industry{{cite web, url=https://www.prweb.com/releases/global_mobile_value_added_services_vas_market_worldwide_industry_share_investment_trends_growth_size_strategy_and_forecast_research_ ...

s accessible from within Kodi. Kodi/XBMC features, since version 10.0 (codename: "Dharma"), an Addons Framework architecture and an Addons Manager GUI client that connects to a

decentralized Decentralization or decentralisation is the process by which the activities of an organization, particularly those related to planning and decision-making, are distributed or delegated away from a central, authoritative location or group and gi ...

digital distribution Digital distribution, also referred to as content delivery, online distribution, or electronic software distribution, among others, is the delivery or distribution of information or materials through digital platforms. The distribution of digital ...

service

platform Platform may refer to: Arts * Platform, an arts centre at The Bridge, Easterhouse, Glasgow * ''Platform'' (1993 film), a 1993 Bollywood action film * ''Platform'' (2000 film), a 2000 film by Jia Zhangke * '' The Platform'' (2019 film) * Pla ...

that serves add-on apps and plug-ins which among other things provide online content to Kodi, the "Addons Manager" (or "Addons Browser") inside Kodi allows users to browse and download new addons directly from Kodi's GUI. Many of these online content sources are in

over-the-top content An over-the-top media service (also known as over-the-top television, or simply OTT) is a digital distribution service of video and audio delivered directly to viewers via the public Internet, rather than through an over-the-air, cable, satel ...

high definition services and use video streaming site as sources for the media content that is offered. Kodi has extensibility and integration with online sources for free and premium streaming content, and offers content from everything from commercial video to free educational programming, and media from individuals and small businesses. Not all content sources on add-ons are available in every country, however. Due to rights agreements, many content sources are geo-restricted to prevent users in outside countries from accessing content, although some have taken to bypassing the regional restrictions in order to unblock these sources, disregarding the usage rights.

Plugins and scripts

Kodi features an integrated Python Scripts interpreter for addon extensions, and WindowXML

application framework In computer programming, an application framework consists of a software framework used by software developers to implement the standard structure of application software. Application frameworks became popular with the rise of graphical user inte ...

(a XML-based

widget toolkit A widget toolkit, widget library, GUI toolkit, or UX library is a library (computing), library or a collection of libraries containing a set of graphical control elements (called ''widgets'') used to construct the graphical user interface (GUI) of ...

engine for creating a GUI for apps and widgets) in a similar fashion to Apple macOS Dashboard Widgets and

Microsoft Gadgets Microsoft Gadgets are lightweight single-purpose applications, or software widgets, that can sit on a Microsoft Windows user's computer desktop, or are hosted on a web page. According to Microsoft, it will be possible for the different types of g ...

. Python widget scripts allow normal users to add new functionality to Kodi themselves, using Python scripting language. Current plugin scripts include functions like Internet-TV and movie-trailer browsers, cinemaguides, weather forecast,

video streaming services like YouTube,

BBC iPlayer BBC iPlayer (stylised as iPLAYER or BBC iPLAYER) is a video on demand service from the BBC. The service is available Over-the-top media service, over-the-top on a wide range of devices, including Mobile phone, mobile phones and Tablet computer ...

MLB.tv MLB.com is the official site of Major League Baseball and is overseen by Major League Baseball Advanced Media, L.P. (a subsidiary of MLB). MLB.com is a source of baseball-related information, including baseball news, statistics, and sports column ...

, Internet-radio-station browsers such as Pandora Radio, online picture sharing sites like

Flickr Flickr ( ) is an image hosting service, image and Online video platform, video hosting service, as well as an online community, founded in Canada and headquartered in the United States. It was created by Ludicorp in 2004 and was previously a co ...

, TV guides such as TVShow Time, e-mail clients,

instant messaging Instant messaging (IM) technology is a type of synchronous computer-mediated communication involving the immediate ( real-time) transmission of messages between two or more parties over the Internet or another computer network. Originally involv ...

, different timetables,

home automation Home automation or domotics is building automation for a home. A home automation system will monitor and/or control home attributes such as lighting, climate, entertainment systems, and appliances. It may also include home security such ...

scripts to front-end control PVR software and hardware, P2P file-sharing downloaders (

BitTorrent BitTorrent is a Protocol (computing), communication protocol for peer-to-peer file sharing (P2P), which enables users to distribute data and electronic files over the Internet in a Decentralised system, decentralized manner. The protocol is d ...

IRC IRC (Internet Relay Chat) is a text-based chat system for instant messaging. IRC is designed for group communication in discussion forums, called '' channels'', but also allows one-on-one communication via private messages as well as chat ...

, also

casual game A casual game is a video game targeted at a mass market audience, as opposed to a hardcore game, which is targeted at hobbyist gamers. Casual games may exhibit any type of gameplay and genre. They generally involve simpler rules, shorter sessio ...

s such as ''

Tetris ''Tetris'' () is a puzzle video game created in 1985 by Alexey Pajitnov, a Soviet software engineer. In ''Tetris'', falling tetromino shapes must be neatly sorted into a pile; once a horizontal line of the game board is filled in, it disa ...

''.

Metadata extraction and web scrapers

Kodi has the built-in optional function to automatically download

information,

cover art Cover art is a type of artwork presented as an illustration or photograph on the outside of a published product, such as a book (often on a dust jacket), magazine, newspaper ( tabloid), comic book, video game ( box art), music album ( album ar ...

and other related media artwork online through its web scrapers that looks for media in the user's audio and video folders and their sub-directories. These "scrapers" are 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. XBMCGUI then provides a rich display for audio and video files that the scrapers have identified. Scrapers use sites like The Movie Database (TMDb) or

IMDb.com IMDb, historically known as the Internet Movie Database, is an online database of information related to films, television series, podcasts, home videos, video games, and streaming content online – including cast, production crew and biograp ...

to obtain

thumbnails Thumbnails are reduced-size versions of pictures or videos, used to help in recognizing and organizing them, serving the same role for images as a normal text index (publishing), index does for words. In the age of digital images, visual search ...

and information on movies, thetvdb.com for TV show posters and episode plots,

CDDB CDDB, short for Compact Disc Database, is a database for application software, software applications to look up audio CD (compact disc) information over the Internet. This is performed by a client which calculates a (nearly) unique disc Identifier ...

for audio CD track listings, and Allmusic (AMG) and

MusicBrainz MusicBrainz is a MetaBrainz project that aims to create a collaborative music database that is similar to the freedb project. MusicBrainz was founded in response to the restrictions placed on the CDDB, Compact Disc Database (CDDB), a database for ...

for album

, reviews, and metadata. Fanart.tv has been added to the list of information sources and XBMC can use it to retrieve logos, backgrounds, CDs with transparent backgrounds, album covers and banners among other image types for music artists, TV shows and movies, the popularity of which contributed to XBMC being able to handle new image types.

Skins and themes

Like the majority of applications that originated from a ' homebrew' scene, modification and customization of the interface using

skin Skin is the layer of usually soft, flexible outer tissue covering the body of a vertebrate animal, with three main functions: protection, regulation, and sensation. Other animal coverings, such as the arthropod exoskeleton, have different ...

s is very popular among Kodi users and hundreds of skins and themes are available for users to install. The Kodi skinning engine's flexibility is also advantageous to third parties wanting to create derivative works, as it facilitates rebranding the environment and making deeper changes to the look and feel of the user interface. As of Kodi version 17, the official default skins for new installs are "Estuary", for typical home-theater usage, and "Estouchy" for

touchscreen A touchscreen (or touch screen) is a type of electronic visual display, display that can detect touch input from a user. It consists of both an input device (a touch panel) and an output device (a visual display). The touch panel is typically l ...

s. These newly designed skins replace the longtime default skin "Confluence", and are intended to present more content on the homescreen, be easier for new users, and bring "Kodi into the present day of UI design." 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 Kodi skin 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 begin as a clone or an exact replica of other multimedia software interfaces, such as Apple Front Row, Windows Media Center Edition (MCE), MediaPortal, Wii Channel Menu (Xii), Xbox 360 interface, and others. In addition to skins and themes users can create a themed package called a 'build'. Within this package homebrew developers are able to distribute a skin and multiple addons. The delivery mechanism used within the Kodi scene is called a wizard with the Replicant Wizard being the most prominent.

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 XBMC 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. Others act like a media manager to allow modifying metadata and artwork in XBMC's video and music libraries.

Application launcher

Kodi has a "My Programs" section which is meant to function as an application launcher for third-party

software Software consists of computer programs that instruct the Execution (computing), execution of a computer. Software also includes design documents and specifications. The history of software is closely tied to the development of digital comput ...

such as computer games and

video game emulator A video game console emulator is a type of emulator that allows a computing device to emulate a video game console's hardware and play its games on the emulating platform. More often than not, emulators carry additional features that surpass ...

s, all from a

GUI Gui or GUI may refer to: People Surname * Gui (surname), an ancient Chinese surname, ''xing'' * Bernard Gui (1261 or 1262–1331), inquisitor of the Dominican Order * Luigi Gui (1914–2010), Italian politician * Gui Minhai (born 1964), Ch ...

with

thumbnail Thumbnails are reduced-size versions of pictures or videos, used to help in recognizing and organizing them, serving the same role for images as a normal text index does for words. In the age of digital images, visual search engines and image-o ...

and different listings options. However, while this feature was fully functioning on the Xbox version of XBMC, it is still in its infant stage on Android, iOS, Linux, macOS, and Windows, thus requiring third-party launcher plugins to function properly.

Mobile remotes and second screen apps

There are many

companion app A second screen involves the use of a secondary computing device to provide a different viewing experience for content on another device. The term commonly refers to the use of such devices to provide interactive features, like posts on social me ...

s for mobile devices available for and associated with Kodi. Some of these mobile apps work as simple remote controls, while others function as more advanced

second screen A second screen involves the use of a secondary computing device to provide a different viewing experience for content on another device. The term commonly refers to the use of such devices to provide interactive features, like posts on social me ...

companion apps, offering additional information about what users are viewing or listening to on Kodi, such as

about movie actors and music artists, with links to other works available from those persons in their collection or online. "XBMC Remote for Android" and "XBMC Remote for iOS" are free and open source official apps for mobile devices released by Team-Kodi/Team-XBMC on

Google Play Google Play, also known as the Google Play Store, Play Store, or sometimes the Android Store (and was formerly Android Market), is a digital distribution service operated and developed by Google. It serves as the official app store for certifie ...

for Android devices and the

App Store An app store, also called an app marketplace or app catalog, is a type of digital distribution platform for computer software called applications, often in a mobile context. Apps provide a specific set of functions which, by definition, do not i ...

for

iOS Devices The iPhone, developed by Apple Inc., is a line of smartphones that combine a mobile phone, digital camera, personal computer, and Portable media player, music player into one device. Introduced by then-CEO Steve Jobs on January 9, 2007, the iPh ...

, such as

iPad The iPad is a brand of tablet computers developed and marketed by Apple Inc., Apple that run the company's mobile operating systems iOS and later iPadOS. The IPad (1st generation), first-generation iPad was introduced on January 27, 2010. ...

iPhone The iPhone is a line of smartphones developed and marketed by Apple that run iOS, the company's own mobile operating system. The first-generation iPhone was announced by then–Apple CEO and co-founder Steve Jobs on January 9, 2007, at ...

, and

iPod Touch The iPod Touch (stylized as iPod touch) is a discontinued line of iOS-based mobile devices designed and formerly marketed by Apple Inc. with a touchscreen-controlled user interface. As with other iPod models, the iPod Touch can be used as a po ...

. These applications act as a second screen and remote control solution which allows for fully browsing the media library and for remote controlling of an installed and concurrently active XBMC session running on a computer via the handheld touchscreen user interface of these device. Several third-party developers have also released multiple other unofficial Kodi remote control apps for iOS, Android,

BlackBerry BlackBerry is a discontinued brand of handheld devices and related mobile services, originally developed and maintained by the Canadian company Research In Motion (RIM, later known as BlackBerry Limited) until 2016. The first BlackBerry device ...

Symbian Symbian is a discontinued mobile operating system (OS) and computing platform designed for smartphones. It was originally developed as a proprietary software OS for personal digital assistants in 1998 by the Symbian Ltd. consortium. Symbian OS ...

Ubuntu Touch Ubuntu Touch is a mobile version of the Ubuntu operating system, developed by the UBports community. Its user interface is written in Qt, and is designed primarily for touchscreen mobile devices such as smartphones and tablet computers. Howev ...

Windows Mobile Windows Mobile is a discontinued mobile operating system developed by Microsoft for smartphones and personal digital assistants (PDA). Designed to be the portable equivalent of the Windows desktop OS in the emerging Mobile device, mobile/port ...

, and

Windows Phone Windows Phone (WP) is a discontinued mobile operating system developed by Microsoft Mobile for smartphones as the replacement successor to Windows Mobile and Zune. Windows Phone featured a new user interface derived from the Metro design languag ...

devices. Some of these remote control apps are made specifically for controlling Kodi, while some universal remote control apps are capable of controlling many different media center and media player applications, and some of these third-party remote apps cost money while others are free.

Official versions

Due to the dated hardware of the first-generation Xbox game console that Kodi-XBMC was designed for, and a desire to expand the project's end-user and developer-base, many official

ports Ports collections (or ports trees, or just ports) are the sets of makefiles and Patch (Unix), patches provided by the BSD-based operating systems, FreeBSD, NetBSD, and OpenBSD, as a simple method of installing software or creating binary packages. T ...

of XBMC to computer operating-systems and hardware platforms have been created. Through the processing power of more recent computer hardware, XBMC can decode

high-definition video High-definition video (HD video) is video of higher resolution and quality than standard-definition. While there is no standardized meaning for ''high-definition'', generally any video image with considerably more than 480 vertical scan lines ( ...

up to and beyond

resolutions, bypassing hardware limitations of the Xbox version of XBMC. In recent releases of Kodi-XBMC there is hardware accelerated video decoding for

, VA-API GPU hardware video decoding, as well as hardware accelerated video decoding via

ARM NEON ARM (stylised in lowercase as arm, formerly an acronym for Advanced RISC Machines and originally Acorn RISC Machine) is a family of RISC instruction set architectures (ISAs) for computer processors. Arm Holdings develops the ISAs and licen ...

, and OpenMAX, Broadcom Crystal HD. The source code for XBMC is actively updated by developers in a public

Git repository Git () is a distributed version control system that tracks versions of files. It is often used to control source code by programmers who are developing software collaboratively. Design goals of Git include speed, data integrity, and support ...

, which may contain features and functionality not yet incorporated into the most recent "stable" releases.

Native applications

''Kodi for Linux'' (formerly ''XBMC for Linux'') is primarily developed for Ubuntu Linux and Kodi's developers' own Kodibuntu (formerly ''XBMCbuntu''). Third-party packages for most other Linux distributions are also available, and it is possible to compile XBMC Media Center from scratch for any Linux distribution, as long as the required dependency libraries are installed first. Hardware accelerated video decoding is achieved via the

API on Nvidia's GPUs, the VAAPI API for AMD/ATI Radeon,

S3 Graphics S3 Graphics, Ltd. was an American computer graphics company. The company sold the S3 Trio, Trio, S3 ViRGE, ViRGE, S3 Savage, Savage, and S3 Chrome, Chrome series of graphics processors. Struggling against competition from 3dfx Interactive, ATI T ...

, and Intel's newer

Integrated Graphics Processor A graphics processing unit (GPU) is a specialized electronic circuit designed for digital image processing and to accelerate computer graphics, being present either as a discrete video card or embedded on motherboards, mobile phones, personal ...

s, as well as hardware accelerated video decoding via OpenMAX,

, and Broadcom Crystal HD on systems with supporting hardware. Development version of Kodi/XBMC for Linux is available at Launchpad as PPA (Personal Package Archive) for the standard Ubuntu Desktop version 8.04 and later, as well as DEB packages for

Debian Debian () is a free and open-source software, free and open source Linux distribution, developed by the Debian Project, which was established by Ian Murdock in August 1993. Debian is one of the oldest operating systems based on the Linux kerne ...

. ''Kodi for OS X'' (formerly ''XBMC for Mac'') runs natively on

Mac OS X Tiger Mac OS X Tiger (version 10.4) is the 5th major release of macOS, Apple's desktop and server operating system for Mac computers. Tiger was released to the public on April 29, 2005, for US$129.95 as the successor to Mac OS X 10.3 Panther. Inc ...

and later, as well as on the Apple TV. 1080p playback can be achieved on

Apple An apple is a round, edible fruit produced by an apple tree (''Malus'' spp.). Fruit trees of the orchard or domestic apple (''Malus domestica''), the most widely grown in the genus, are agriculture, cultivated worldwide. The tree originated ...

computers either via software decoding on the CPU, if it is powerful enough, or by hardware-accelerated video decoding for hardware supporting Apple's VDA API or video decoders such as the Broadcom Crystal HD. 1080p playback on the first-generation Apple TV (a.k.a. "ATV1") can only be achieved by hardware accelerated video decoding via Broadcom Crystal HD; the user must replace the ATV's internal WiFi adapter with a Broadcom Crystal HD PCI Express Mini (mini-PCIe) card in order to activate this functionality. ''Kodi for Windows'' (formerly ''XBMC for Windows'') runs natively on Windows 7, Windows 8, and Windows 10 as a

32-bit In computer architecture, 32-bit computing refers to computer systems with a processor, memory, and other major system components that operate on data in a maximum of 32- bit units. Compared to smaller bit widths, 32-bit computers can perform la ...

64-bit In computer architecture, 64-bit integers, memory addresses, or other data units are those that are 64 bits wide. Also, 64-bit central processing units (CPU) and arithmetic logic units (ALU) are those that are based on processor registers, a ...

application. 1080p and Ultra HD (4K) playback can be achieved on Windows computers either via software decoding on the CPU, if it's powerful enough, or by hardware accelerated video decoding. Hardware video decoding via

DirectX Video Acceleration DirectX Video Acceleration (DXVA) is a Microsoft API specification for the Microsoft Windows and Xbox 360 platforms that allows video decoding to be hardware-accelerated. The pipeline allows certain CPU-intensive operations such as iDCT, motio ...

is supported, although this enhancement only runs on Windows 7 (or later?) since it uses the DXVA 2.0 API, which was not supported in Windows XP. ''Kodi for iOS'' (formerly ''XBMC for iOS''), a full port of Kodi to Apple's

operating system, was released publicly on 20 January 2011. It supported both 720p and 1080p hardware accelerated video decoding of

H.264 Advanced Video Coding (AVC), also referred to as H.264 or MPEG-4 Part 10, is a video compression standard based on block-oriented, motion-compensated coding. It is by far the most commonly used format for the recording, compression, and d ...

videos, and was compatible with Apple's iDevices that use

Apple A4 The Apple A4 is a 32-bit package on package (PoP) system on a chip (SoC) designed by Apple Inc., part of the Apple silicon series, and manufactured by Samsung. It was the first SoC Apple designed in-house. The first product to feature the A4 was ...

Apple A5 The Apple A5 is a 32-bit system on a chip (SoC) designed by Apple Inc., part of the Apple silicon series, and manufactured by Samsung. The first product Apple featured an A5 in was the iPad 2. Apple claimed during their media event on March 2, 2 ...

(ARM-based) processors with a

jailbroken iOS jailbreaking is the use of a privilege escalation exploit to remove software restrictions imposed by Apple on devices running iOS and iOS-based operating systems. It is typically done through a series of kernel patches. A jailbroken device ...

iOS operating system. In late 2017 ''

MacWorld UK ''Macworld'' is a digital magazine and website dedicated to products and software of Apple Inc., published by Foundry, a subsidiary of IDG. History ''Macworld'' was founded by David Bunnell and Cheryl Woodard (publishers) and Andrew Flue ...

'' described how to install on iOS devices before iOS 11 without jailbreak. ''Kodi for Android'' (formerly ''XBMC for Android'') is a full port of the complete Kodi/XBMC application to Google's Android operating system, officially compatible with Android 4.0 (Ice Cream Sandwich) and later versions supporting API Level 14. It was first announced and its source code released publicly on 13 June 2012. This is a full port of Kodi's 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 XBMC.APK is running natively under Android as a NativeActivity application. Hardware accelerated video decoding on Android is currently only officially available for some specific hardware platforms, such as the Amlogic SoC based Pivos XIOS series which have been used as the reference hardware platform during the development so far. XBMC source code must be compiled with Google's official Android NDK revision 10d or later, and be built for the ''android-17'' toolchain (Android API Level 17) using GCC version 4.8, which Kodi for Android code currently requires to compile correctly but is not supported by Google's Android NDK. This is also the real reason why XBMC for Android does not support the original Google TV; since the Android NDK was not made available for older Google TV devices it means that Kodi/XBMC could not be compiled for it today.

Xbox (first-generation)

XBMC 9.04 (codename: ''Babylon'') point-release version of XBMC for

, now obsolete, was released on 6 May 2009 as the last official version of XBMC for Xbox. The original developers of XBMC have since issued a statement stating they will no longer develop or support XBMC for Xbox as part of the XBMC project as of 27 May 2010. The development of XBMC for Xbox ended because the focus for all Team XBMC developers has completely shifted to the Linux, Mac, and Windows versions of XBMC instead. Even though the original XBMC project no longer develops or supports XBMC for the Xbox, an XBMC version for the Xbox is still available via the third-party developer spin-off project " XBMC4Xbox", who have completely taken over the development and support of XBMC for the original Xbox. XBMC for Xbox was never an authorized/signed Microsoft product, therefore a modification of the Xbox is required in order to run XBMC on an Xbox game-console. XBMC for Xbox can be run as an application (like any Xbox game), or as a

dashboard A dashboard (also called dash, instrument panel or IP, or fascia) is a control panel (engineering), control panel set within the central console of a vehicle, boat, or cockpit of an aircraft or spacecraft. Usually located directly ahead of the ...

that appears directly when the Xbox is turned on. Since XBMC for Xbox was part of an open source software program, its development

was stored on a publicly accessible subversion repository. Accordingly, unofficial

executable In computer science, executable code, an executable file, or an executable program, sometimes simply referred to as an executable or binary, causes a computer "to perform indicated tasks according to encoded instruction (computer science), in ...

builds from the subversion repository are often released by third parties on sites unaffiliated with the official XBMC project.

Xbox One

On 29 December 2017, Kodi developers announced via the news section of their official website that a Kodi app had been released for the

Xbox One The Xbox One is a home video game console developed by Microsoft. Announced in May 2013, it is the successor to Xbox 360 and the third console in the Xbox#Consoles, Xbox series. It was first released in North America, parts of Europe, Austra ...

. It is noted that the UWP version will retain the characteristic Kodi appearance, however, many core features are missing or broken.

Commercial systems

The developers of Kodi (formerly ''XBMC'') state that as long as the GPL licensing of the Kodi software is respected they would love Kodi to run on as many third-party hardware platforms and

operating system An operating system (OS) is system software that manages computer hardware and software resources, and provides common daemon (computing), services for computer programs. Time-sharing operating systems scheduler (computing), schedule tasks for ...

s as possible, as "Powered by Kodi" (or "Powered by XBMC") branded devices and systems. They envision Kodi being pre-installed as a

third-party software component In computer programming, a third-party software component is a reusable software component developed to be either freely distributed or sold by an entity other than the original vendor of the development platform. The third-party software component ...

that commercial and non-commercial ODMs and OEMs and

systems integrator A systems integrator (or system integrator) is a person or company that specializes in bringing together component subsystems into a whole and ensuring that those subsystems function together, a practice known as system integration. They also solv ...

companies can use

royalty-free Royalty-free (RF) material subject to copyright or other intellectual property rights may be used without the need to pay royalties or license fees for each use, per each copy or volume sold or some time period of use or sales. Computer standards ...

on their own hardware, hardware such as

es from cable-TV companies,

Blu-ray Disc Blu-ray (Blu-ray Disc or BD) is a Digital media, digital optical disc data storage format designed to supersede the DVD format. It was invented and developed in 2005 and released worldwide on June 20, 2006, capable of storing several hours of ...

and

DVD player A DVD player is a machine that plays DVDs produced under both the DVD-Video and DVD-Audio technical standards, two different and incompatible standards. Some DVD players will also play audio CDs. DVD players are connected to a television to ...

s, game-consoles, or embedded computers and SoC (System-on-a-Chip) built into

television set A television set or television receiver (more commonly called TV, TV set, television, telly, or tele) is an electronic device for viewing and hearing television broadcasts, or as a computer monitor. It combines a tuner, display, and loudspeake ...

s for web-enabled TVs, and other entertainment devices for the living room entertainment system,

home cinema A home cinema, also called home theater, is a home entertainment audio-visual system that seeks to reproduce a movie theater experience and mood using consumer grade electronic video and audio equipment and is set up in a private home. In ...

, or similar uses. Below is a list of third-party companies that sell hardware bundled with Kodi or XBMC software pre-installed, or sell uninstalled systems that specifically claim to be Kodi- or XBMC-compatible. Many of these third-party companies help submit bug fixes and new features back upstream to the original Kodi-XBMC project.

Computer hardware

ARCTIC The Arctic (; . ) is the polar regions of Earth, polar region of Earth that surrounds the North Pole, lying within the Arctic Circle. The Arctic region, from the IERS Reference Meridian travelling east, consists of parts of northern Norway ( ...

is a company based in Germany best known for their cooling solutions working in

partnership A partnership is an agreement where parties agree to cooperate to advance their mutual interests. The partners in a partnership may be individuals, businesses, interest-based organizations, schools, governments or combinations. Organizations ...

with the

OpenELEC OpenELEC (short for Open Embedded Linux Entertainment Center) is a discontinued Linux distribution designed for home theater PCs and based on the Kodi (formerly XBMC) media player. OpenELEC applies the " just enough operating system" principle. ...

team. On 5 February 2013, together they released a fully passively cooled entertainment system: the MC001 media centre (US and EU version), equipped with the latest XBMC 12 (OpenELEC 3.0)

. OpenELEC and ARCTIC are planning on their next release, aim to provide a more dedicated builds for the ARCTIC MC001 media centre systems. AIRIS Telebision, sold by Telebision in Spain and designed specifically for the Spanish market, is a

nettop A mini PC (or miniature PC, nettop, or Smart Micro PC) is a small-sized, inexpensive, low-power, Legacy free PC, legacy-free desktop computer, desktop computer designed for basic tasks such as Web navigation, web browsing, accessing web appl ...

based on

Nvidia Ion Nvidia Ion was a product line of Nvidia, Nvidia Corporation intended for motherboards of low-cost portable computers. It used graphics processing units and chipsets intended for small products. Description First generation Nvidia Ion products incl ...

chipset, pre-installed Ubuntu base with XBMC for Linux and a customized AEON skin and Spanish plugins. Other than the modified skin, what is unique with the AIRIS Telebision's XBMC build is that it comes with a

service platform that they call their "App Store" which lets users download new Spanish plugins and updates for existing plugins. Telebision also lets users download a Live CD version of their software as

freeware Freeware is software, often proprietary, that is distributed at no monetary cost to the end user. There is no agreed-upon set of rights, license, or EULA that defines ''freeware'' unambiguously; every publisher defines its own rules for the free ...

, which lets users install their Telebision distribution on any Nvidia Ion based computer. Lucida TV II, made by LUCIDQ inc, is a nettop based on Nvidia Ion chipset which can be ordered with

Xubuntu Xubuntu () is a Canonical-recognized, community-maintained derivative of the Ubuntu operating system. The name ''Xubuntu'' is a portmanteau of ''Xfce'' and ''Ubuntu'', as it uses the Xfce desktop environment, instead of Ubuntu's customized GNOME ...

and XBMC software installed. Pulse-Eight Limited sells both custom and off-the-shelf hardware primarily designed for Kodi-XBMC, such as remote controls, HTPC systems and accessories, including a custom HTPC PVR set-top-box pre-installed with XBMC that they call "PulseBox" Pulse-Eight also offers free performance tuned embedded versions of XBMC that they call "Pulse" which is based on

and a custom PVR-build of XBMC that is meant to run on a dedicated HTPC system.

Xtreamer Xtreamer was a brand of home digital media player and HTPC (Home Theater PC) products. The product line's goais to replace traditional video players in homes (such as DVD players) with more versatile, but still affordable, players. These players ar ...

Ultra and Xtreamer Ultra 2, manufactured by the South Korean company Unicorn Information Systems, are nettops based on Nvidia graphics and

processors which come with OpenELEC and Kodi-XBMC software pre-installed. The first-generation Xtreamer Ultra uses Nvidia Ion chipset with a 1.80 GHz dual-core Intel Atom D525 CPU, while the Xtreamer Ultra 2 uses discrete GeForce GT 520M graphics with a 2.13 GHz dual-core Intel Atom D2700 CPU. Since 10 September 2010, ZOTAC has been shipping a software bundle that they call ZOTAC Boost XL with all their new

motherboard A motherboard, also called a mainboard, a system board, a logic board, and informally a mobo (see #Nomenclature, "Nomenclature" section), is the main printed circuit board (PCB) in general-purpose computers and other expandable systems. It ho ...

s and Mini-PCs, such as Zotac's ZBOX and MAG series of Nettops which Zotac also does demos of with XBMC. This ZOTAC Boost XL software bundle consist of the software applications; Auslogics BoostSpeed,

Cooliris Cooliris, Inc. was a US corporation headquartered in San Francisco, California, that developed photo viewing products on mobile, web, and desktop platforms. It was a venture backed by Kleiner, Perkins, Caufield & Byers, T-Venture, DAG Ventures, ...

, Kylo (HDTV-optimized Web Browser), and XBMC Media Center. Zotac's ZBOX and MAG series of small mini-PCs are nettops based on Intel, AMD, or Nvidia graphics, and they are all sold in both as complete ready-to-use computer and as

barebone computer A barebone computer is a partially assembled platform or an unassembled kit of computer parts allowing more customization and lower costs than a retail computer system. They are available for desktop computer, notebook (see barebook) and server ...

s (without memory and hard drive). Zotac Zbox ID33, ID34, ID81, ID80 and AD04 are all specifically marketed towards the HTPC market, with some coming with

slot-loading A CD player is an electronic device that plays audio compact discs, which are a digital optical disc data storage format. CD players were first sold to consumers in 1982. CDs typically contain recordings of audio material such as music or audi ...

Blu-ray Disc optical disc drive, and some with a remote control. The mintBox by the

Linux Mint Linux Mint is a community-developed Linux distribution. It is based on Ubuntu and designed for x86-64 based computers; another variant is based on Debian which is named Linux Mint Debian Edition (LMDE) and has both 64-bit and IA-32 support. T ...

team is an OEM version of the Israeli company CompuLab's

fit-PC The fit-PC is a small, light, fan-less nettop computer manufactured by the Israeli company CompuLab. Many fit-PC models are available. fit-PC 1.0 was introduced in July 2007, fit-PC Slim was introduced in September 2008, fit-PC 2 was introduce ...

, which comes pre-installed with Linux Mint open source operating-system and software,

MATE Mate may refer to: Science * Mate, one of a pair of animals involved in: ** Mate choice, intersexual selection *** Mate choice in humans ** Mating * Multi-antimicrobial extrusion protein, or MATE, an efflux transporter family of proteins Pers ...

desktop, and XBMC. Available in two fanless models, both with

AMD APU AMD Accelerated Processing Unit (APU), formerly known as Fusion, is a series of 64-bit microprocessors from Advanced Micro Devices (AMD), combining a general-purpose AMD64 central processing unit ( CPU) and 3D integrated graphics processing u ...

s, HDMI output port, eight USB slots, two eSATA ports, Gigabit Ethernet, 802.11 b/g/n Wi-Fi, built-in Bluetooth, and an infrared media center remote control.

Dedicated devices

PrismCube Ruby by Marusys is a DVB-S2 twin-tuner high-definition DVR-PVR set-top-box running XBMC as its main interface on-top of embedded Linux. The Little Black Box is a Linux kernel-based ARM media player with XBMC as its main interface. Marusys MS630S and MS850S are high-definition PVR-ready set-top-boxes with the ability to run Linux kernel-based media players like XBMC, and Marusys is advertising these two devices as compatible with XBMC. Myka ION is a fanless Nvidia Ion-based set-top device designed to bring Internet television and media stored on the home network to the living room; it comes pre-installed with XBMC Media Center, Boxee, and Hulu Desktop as applications that can be started from the main menu. The MK-X1 by Modified Konstructs is an Nvidia Ion-based set-top device based on

Acer Aspire Revo The Acer AspireRevo was a line of nettop computers from Acer Inc., first released at the end of April 2009.

that comes pre-loaded with XBMC, and the device has a recommended retail price of $300 (US). Neuros LINK made by Neuros Technology is an open Ubuntu-based set-top device and media extender designed to bring internet television and other video to the television, it comes pre-installed with XBMC Media Center. BryteWerks Model One Projector is a 1080p HD digital video projector designed for home cinema use; it has an integrated home theater PC running a custom version of XBMC. In addition it features a remote control, as well as a 720p 8.9-inch touch screen panel display on the back of the projector for controlling the system. It also has a built-in Wi-Fi and Ethernet adapters, as well as a slot-loaded Blu-ray Disc player, and includes a 500 GB

solid-state drive A solid-state drive (SSD) is a type of solid-state storage device that uses integrated circuits to store data persistently. It is sometimes called semiconductor storage device, solid-state device, or solid-state disk. SSDs rely on non- ...

and an additional internal 2 TB hard disk drive can be added. The Primus by Mediaimpact Technologies is a Linux Mint-based media center and set-top-box that integrates MythTV, Netflix Desktop, Hulu Desktop, and Steam Gaming through Kodi for a seamless home entertainment system ready for the living room. It comes complete with SMK-Link remote control.

Derivatives and forks

Kodi/XBMC media center source code have over the years become a popular software to

fork In cutlery or kitchenware, a fork (from 'pitchfork') is a utensil, now usually made of metal, whose long handle terminates in a head that branches into several narrow and often slightly curved tines with which one can spear foods either to h ...

and to use as an application framework platform for others to base their own media player or media center software on, as if Kodi were a

GUI toolkit A widget toolkit, widget library, GUI toolkit, or UX library is a library or a collection of libraries containing a set of graphical control elements (called ''widgets'') used to construct the graphical user interface (GUI) of programs. Most wid ...

, windowing system, or

window manager A window manager is system software that controls the placement and appearance of window (computing), windows within a windowing system in a graphical user interface. Most window managers are designed to help provide a desktop environment. They ...

. And today at least

Boxee Boxee was a cross-platform freeware HTPC (Home Theater PC) software application with a 10-foot user interface and social networking features designed for the living-room TV. It enabled its users to view, rate and recommend content to their fri ...

Tofu or bean curd is a food prepared by Coagulation (milk), coagulating soy milk and then pressing the resulting curds into solid white blocks of varying softness: ''silken'', ''soft'', ''firm'', and ''extra (or super) firm''. It originated in Chin ...

, OSMC, GeeXboX, Voddler, DVDFab Media Player, and Horizon TV are all separate derivative products that are all openly known to at least initially have forked the

(GUI) and media player part of their software from XBMC's source code. Many of these third-party forks and derivative work of Kodi-XBMC are said to still assist with submitting bug fixes

upstream Upstream may refer to: * Upstream (hydrology), the direction towards the source of a stream (against the direction of flow) * Upstream (bioprocess), part of therapeutic cell manufacturing processes from early cell isolation and cultivation until ...

and sometimes help getting new features

backported Backporting is the action of taking parts from a newer version of a software system or software component and porting them to an older version of the same software. It forms part of the maintenance step in a software development process, and it is ...

to the original Kodi-XBMC project so that others can utilize it as well, shared from one main source. However some which was initially a fork of XBMC have since fully or partially been rewritten to use closed source proprietary software. For more information see the main "

List of software based on XBMC This is list of software projects or products that are third-party source ports, modified Fork (software development), forks, or derivative work directly based on ''Kodi (software), Kodi Entertainment Center'' (formerly ''XBMC Media Center''), an ...

" article. Some examples on building on Kodi-XBMC are

, OSMC,

and GeeXboX which are free and open source

embedded operating system An embedded operating system (EOS) is an operating system designed specifically for embedded computer systems. These systems aim to enhance functionality and reliability to perform dedicated tasks. When the multitasking method employed allows ...

s providing complete media center software suite that comes with a preconfigured version of Kodi/XBMC and DVR/PVR plugins. They are both designed to be extremely small and very fast booting embedded Linux-based distributions, primarily optimized to be booted from

flash memory Flash memory is an Integrated circuit, electronic Non-volatile memory, non-volatile computer memory storage medium that can be electrically erased and reprogrammed. The two main types of flash memory, NOR flash and NAND flash, are named for t ...

or a

, and specifically targeted to a minimum

hardware setup based on ARM SoC's or Intel x86 processor and graphics. Similar embedded Linux distributions to LibreELEC/OpenELEC/GeeXboX are the professionally made E2BMC and OpenPCTV which are commercial Kodi/XBMC-based software platform for DVR/PVR set-top boxes, with both being designed as a hybrid integration between Kodi media center software and

's Enigma2 PVR software scripts. Another example is XBMC4Xbox, which is a third-party developer spin-off project of XBMC, with still active development and support of the Xbox platform. This project was created as a fork of XBMC as a separate project to continue having a version of XBMC for the Xbox hardware platform. It was not started by official members of the official XBMC project, nor will it be supported by the official Team Kodi in any way. It started when support for the Xbox branch was officially dropped by Team XBMC, which was announced on 27 May 2010.

Programming and developing

Kodi is a non-profit and

free software community The free software movement is a social movement with the goal of obtaining and guaranteeing certain freedoms for software users, namely the freedoms to run, study, modify, and share copies of software. Software which meets these requirements, ...

driven

open-source software Open-source software (OSS) is Software, computer software that is released under a Open-source license, license in which the copyright holder grants users the rights to use, study, change, and Software distribution, distribute the software an ...

project that is developed only by volunteers in their

spare time Leisure (, ) has often been defined as a quality of experience or as free time. Free time is time spent away from business, work, job hunting, domestic chores, and education, as well as necessary activities such as eating and sleeping. Leis ...

without any

monetary Money is any item or verifiable record that is generally accepted as payment for goods and services and repayment of debts, such as taxes, in a particular country or socio-economic context. The primary functions which distinguish money are: med ...

gain. XBMC Foundation and the team of developers leading the development of Kodi/XBMC, "''Team-Kodi''"/"''Team-XBMC''", 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/XBMC project. The online

user manual A user guide, also commonly known as a user manual, is intended to assist users in using a particular product, service or application. It is usually written by a technician, product developer, or a company's customer service staff. Most user gu ...

wiki A wiki ( ) is a form of hypertext publication on the internet which is collaboratively edited and managed by its audience directly through a web browser. A typical wiki contains multiple pages that can either be edited by the public or l ...

-based and community driven, and it also works as a basic developers' guide for getting a good overview of Kodi's architecture. However, as with most non-profit software projects, to delve deeper into programming, looking at the actual source code and the

Doxygen Doxygen ( ) is a documentation generator that works with many programming languages. It extracts information from specially-formatted source code comments and saves the information in one of various supported formats. Doxygen supports static ...

formatted "code documentation" comments inside that code is needed.

Architecture

Kodi is a cross-platform software application whose core is mainly programmed in . Kodi uses

OpenGL OpenGL (Open Graphics Library) is a Language-independent specification, cross-language, cross-platform application programming interface (API) for rendering 2D computer graphics, 2D and 3D computer graphics, 3D vector graphics. The API is typic ...

(or

OpenGL ES OpenGL for Embedded Systems (OpenGL ES or GLES) is a subset of the OpenGL computer graphics rendering application programming interface (API) for rendering 2D and 3D computer graphics such as those used by video games, typically hardware-accelerate ...

) graphics rendering under Kodi for both Linux and macOS, while Kodi for Windows uses

Microsoft DirectX Microsoft DirectX is a collection of application programming interfaces (APIs) for handling tasks related to multimedia, especially game programming and video, on Microsoft platforms. Originally, the names of these APIs all began with "Direct" ...

multimedia framework and

Direct3D Direct3D is a graphics application programming interface (API) for Microsoft Windows. Part of DirectX, Direct3D is used to render three-dimensional graphics in applications where performance is important, such as games. Direct3D uses hardware ...

rendering, as the

version of XBMC did. Some of Kodi's own

libraries A library is a collection of Book, books, and possibly other Document, materials and Media (communication), media, that is accessible for use by its members and members of allied institutions. Libraries provide physical (hard copies) or electron ...

, as well as many third-party libraries that Kodi depends on, are written in the C programming-language, instead of as Kodi's core, but they are then mostly used with a wrapper and, through Kodi's core monolithic nature, are loaded via a

dynamic linker In computing, a dynamic linker is the part of an operating system that loads and links the shared libraries needed by an executable when it is executed (at " run time"), by copying the content of libraries from persistent storage to RAM, fill ...

loader Loader can refer to: * Loader (equipment) * Loader (computing) ** LOADER.EXE, an auto-start program loader optionally used in the startup process of Microsoft Windows ME * Loader (surname) * Fast loader * Speedloader * Boot loader ** LOADER.COM ...

for on-demand loading and unloading at run time. Kodi also still partially uses the SDL ( Simple DirectMedia Layer) multimedia

framework A framework is a generic term commonly referring to an essential supporting structure which other things are built on top of. Framework may refer to: Computing * Application framework, used to implement the structure of an application for an op ...

for input on Linux, but its developers are working on completely removing that small remaining dependency on SDL. Because of Kodi/XBMC's origin with the resource constraints on the hardware and environment of the first-generation Xbox game-console platform, all software development of Kodi/XBMC has always been focused on reserving the limited resources that existed on embedded system hardware, like the original Xbox (which was only a 733 MHz

Intel Pentium III The Pentium III (marketed as Intel Pentium III Processor, informally PIII or P3) brand refers to Intel's 32-bit x86 desktop and mobile CPUs based on the sixth-generation P6 (microarchitecture), P6 microarchitecture introduced on February 28, 1999 ...

and 64 MB of RAM in total as shared memory), as well as the still relatively low resources of

embedded system An embedded system is a specialized computer system—a combination of a computer processor, computer memory, and input/output peripheral devices—that has a dedicated function within a larger mechanical or electronic system. It is e ...

devices today, of which the main hindrance has always been the amount of available system

RAM Ram, ram, or RAM most commonly refers to: * A male sheep * Random-access memory, computer memory * Ram Trucks, US, since 2009 ** List of vehicles named Dodge Ram, trucks and vans ** Ram Pickup, produced by Ram Trucks Ram, ram, or RAM may also ref ...

and graphics memory at any one time. This means that Kodi/XBMC is purposely programmed to be very resource- and power-efficient and can therefore run on very low-end and relatively non-expensive hardware, especially when compared to other media center software design for HTPC use. But because of its origins from the Xbox game-console, Kodi/XBMC's legacy graphics renderer still runs in a more game-loop rendering environment rather than using a fully event-driven and on-demand rendering, meaning that it is almost constantly re-drawing the GUI and refreshing the frames as fast as it can, even when nothing is changing on the screen. This results in very high CPU and high GPU usage, which can be observed on embedded systems and low-end machines, and hence cause high temperatures, high fan activity, and high power consumption unless capped at a maximum frame per second configuration for that specific platform build. Work is however constantly ongoing by the developers to make Kodi/XBMC run using much fewer resources on low-power and embedded systems, which will indirectly benefit all non-embedded systems as well. Efficiency improvements in this area are however being worked on in order to move away from that old style game-loop environment in order to reduce high CPU/GPU usage by the GUI, especially as XBMC usage on embedded platforms with limited CPU/GPU resources keeps growing in popularity. XBMC 11.0 (Eden) introduced Dirty-Regions rendering option for texture support to the XBMC skinning engine as an option, and XBMC 12.0 (Frodo) enabled Dirty Regions rendering to redraw the whole screen on a single dirty region by default on all platforms. Work is also in progress for XBMC 14.0 to introduce an abstracted scene-graph deferred rendering for GUI renderer abstraction.

Portability

Kodi has a portable code base, with its trunk (mainline source code tree) officially available for

PowerPC PowerPC (with the backronym Performance Optimization With Enhanced RISC – Performance Computing, sometimes abbreviated as PPC) is a reduced instruction set computer (RISC) instruction set architecture (ISA) created by the 1991 Apple Inc., App ...

, and

-based platforms. The Kodi GUI does require 3D hardware accelerated graphics (

GPU A graphics processing unit (GPU) is a specialized electronic circuit designed for digital image processing and to accelerate computer graphics, being present either as a discrete video card or embedded on motherboards, mobile phones, personal ...

) that support

, or EGL, or

with device drivers that support

2.0, or OpenGL 1.3 or later with

, or

DirectX Microsoft DirectX is a collection of application programming interfaces (APIs) for handling tasks related to multimedia, especially game programming and video, on Microsoft platforms. Originally, the names of these APIs all began with "Direct" ...

in order to render the GUI at an acceptable

frame rate Frame rate, most commonly expressed in frame/s, or FPS, is typically the frequency (rate) at which consecutive images (Film frame, frames) are captured or displayed. This definition applies to film and video cameras, computer animation, and moti ...

. Kodi is thus officially not yet available for MIPS upstream in mainline source code repository from Team-Kodi, nor does it as yet support

DirectFB DirectFB (Direct Frame Buffer), now continued as DirectFB2, is a software library with a small memory footprint that provides graphics acceleration, input device handling and abstraction layer, and integrated windowing system with support for ...

or DRI (Direct Rendering Infrastructure) rendering without OpenGL/GLES hardware accelerated graphics support. The combination of MIPS, DirectFB, and DRI is a popular architecture used today by simpler

es like digital broadcasting (cable/satellite) boxes and low-end

s, such as those based on

MIPS architecture MIPS (Microprocessor without Interlocked Pipelined Stages) is a family of reduced instruction set computer (RISC) instruction set architectures (ISA)Price, Charles (September 1995). ''MIPS IV Instruction Set'' (Revision 3.2), MIPS Technologies ...

chipsets from

Sigma Designs Sigma Designs, Inc., was an American public corporation that designed and built high-performance system-on-a-chip semiconductor technologies for Internet-based set-top boxes, DVD players/recorders, high-definition televisions, media processors, d ...

Realtek Realtek Semiconductor Corp. () is a Taiwanese fabless semiconductor company situated in the Hsinchu Science Park, Hsinchu, Taiwan. Realtek was founded in October 1987 and subsequently listed on the Taiwan Stock Exchange in 1998. Realtek has manu ...

. Kodi ports to MIPS is, however, currently being actively worked on by several independent development teams. Kodi for Linux supports

toolchain A toolchain is a set of software development tools used to build and otherwise develop software. Often, the tools are executed sequentially and form a pipeline such that the output of one tool is the input for the next. Sometimes the term is us ...

building systems for embedded development such as

Yocto A metric prefix is a unit prefix that precedes a basic unit of measure to indicate a multiple or submultiple of the unit. All metric prefixes used today are decadic. Each prefix has a unique symbol that is prepended to any unit symbol. The pre ...

Buildroot Buildroot is a set of Makefiles and Patch (Unix), patches that simplifies and automates the process of building a complete and bootable Linux environment for an embedded system, while using Cross compiler, cross-compilation to allow building for ...

(

uClibc __NOTOC__ In computing, uClibc (sometimes written μClibc) is a small C standard library intended for Linux kernel-based operating systems for embedded systems and mobile devices. uClibc was written to support μClinux, a version of Linux not ...

), and the

Linaro Linaro Limited is an engineering organization that works on free and open-source software such as the Linux kernel, the GNU Compiler Collection (GCC), QEMU, power management, graphics and multimedia interfaces for the ARM family of instruction se ...

set of Makefiles and patches for easing the generation of

cross-compilation A cross compiler is a compiler capable of creating executable code for a platform other than the one on which the compiler is running. For example, a compiler that runs on a PC but generates code that runs on Android devices is a cross compile ...

toolchains as well as the creation of a file system on

embedded Linux The Linux, Linux Operating system is prevalent in embedded systems. As of 2024, developer surveys and industry reports find that Embedded Linux is used in 44%-46% of embedded systems. Due to its Linux range of use, versatility, its large community ...

systems across a wide range of hardware, kernel platforms, and CPU architectures (x86, x86-64, ARM, MIPS, PowerPC, etc.).

Python scripts as plugins and addons (widgets and gadgets)

Kodi allows developers to create addons using a built-in Python interpreter) and its own WindowXML

, which together form an XML-based widget toolkit for which they can extend the capability of Kodi by creating a

for widgets. Python widget scripts allow non-developers to themselves create new add-ons for Kodi, using Python.

Application programming interface (API)

Other than the

s (APIs) available to third-party Python scripts and addon plugins, Kodi features several other APIs for controlling Kodi remotely or from an external application. These APIs includes a

JSON-RPC JSON-RPC (JavaScript Object Notation-Remote Procedure Call) is a JSON-based wire protocol for remote procedure calls (RPC). It is similar to the XML-RPC protocol, defining only a few data types and commands. JSON-RPC allows for notifications (data ...

server, D-Bus Server,

Web server A web server is computer software and underlying Computer hardware, hardware that accepts requests via Hypertext Transfer Protocol, HTTP (the network protocol created to distribute web content) or its secure variant HTTPS. A user agent, co ...

, UPnP AV media server (with UPnP MediaServer ControlPoint, UPnP MediaRenderer DCP, UPnP RenderingControl DCP, and UPnP Remote User Interface server), and a custom multi-protocol Event Server for remote controls.

GUI-engine and skinning (themes)

Kodi/XBMC is noted as having a very flexible

and robust

for its

. With its underlying complex graphical design and layout

library A library is a collection of Book, books, and possibly other Document, materials and Media (communication), media, that is accessible for use by its members and members of allied institutions. Libraries provide physical (hard copies) or electron ...

(named libGUI in Kodi/XBMC), it provides a simple

abstraction layer In computing, an abstraction layer or abstraction level is a way of hiding the working details of a subsystem. Examples of software models that use layers of abstraction include the OSI model for network protocols, OpenGL, and other graphics libra ...

between the application code and the interface, while allowing extremely flexible dynamic layouts and animations that are easy to work with and makes it possible to create completely unique

s for XBMC. The skin files are written in

XAML Extensible Application Markup Language (XAML ) is a declarative XML-based language developed by Microsoft for initializing structured values and objects. It is available under Microsoft's Open Specification Promise. XAML is used extensively i ...

, using a standard

XML Extensible Markup Language (XML) is a markup language and file format for storing, transmitting, and reconstructing data. It defines a set of rules for encoding electronic document, documents in a format that is both human-readable and Machine-r ...

base, making

theme Theme or themes may refer to: * Theme (Byzantine district), an administrative district in the Byzantine Empire governed by a Strategos * Theme (computing), a custom graphical appearance for certain software. * Theme (linguistics), topic * Theme ( ...

skinning Skinning is the act of skin removal. The process is done by humans to animals, mainly as a means to prepare the meat beneath for cooking and consumption, or to harvest the skin for making fur clothing or tanning it to make leather. The sk ...

and personal customization very accessible.

Software limitations

Kodi's own internal cross-platform video and audio players (DVDPlayer and PAPlayer) cannot officially play any audio or video files that are protected or encrypted with

digital rights management Digital rights management (DRM) is the management of legal access to digital content. Various tools or technological protection measures, such as access control technologies, can restrict the use of proprietary hardware and copyrighted works. DRM ...

(DRM) technologies for

access control In physical security and information security, access control (AC) is the action of deciding whether a subject should be granted or denied access to an object (for example, a place or a resource). The act of ''accessing'' may mean consuming ...

, meaning audio files purchased from

online music store A digital music store is a business that sells digital audio files of music recordings over the Internet. Customers gain ownership of a license to use the files, in contrast to a music streaming service, where they listen to recordings withou ...

s such as iTunes Music Store,

Audible.com Audible is an American online audiobook and podcast service that allows users to purchase and stream audiobooks and other forms of spoken-word content. This content can be purchased individually or under a subscription model in which the user re ...

, Windows Media Player Stores, and video files protected with

Windows Media DRM Windows Media DRM or WMDRM, is a digital rights management service for the Windows Media platform. It is designed to provide delivery of audio or video content over an IP network to a PC or other playback device in such a way that the distributor ...

DivX DIVX (Digital Video Express) is a discontinued digital video format. Created in part by Circuit City, it was an unsuccessful attempt to create an alternative to video rental in the United States. The format's poor reception from consumers resu ...

proprietary DRM. Such files can be played only by using another media player supporting DRM, or by removing the DRM protection from the file.

Reception

Kodi won a Lifehacker Award in 2014 for "Best Media Player" in their entertainment selection. Kodi won two

SourceForge SourceForge is a web service founded by Geoffrey B. Jeffery, Tim Perdue, and Drew Streib in November 1999. SourceForge provides a centralized software discovery platform, including an online platform for managing and hosting open-source soft ...

2006 Community Choice Awards. In the 2007 Community Choice Awards, Kodi was nominated finalist in six categories. Also in the 2008 Community Choice Awards Kodi won an award for Best Project for Gamers. With

Microsoft's Microsoft Corporation is an American multinational corporation and technology company, technology conglomerate headquartered in Redmond, Washington. Founded in 1975, the company became influential in the History of personal computers#The ear ...

decision to discontinue Windows Media Center (WMC) starting Windows 10, htpcBeginner.com voted Kodi not only as the best WMC alternative but also in many ways better than WMC.

History

On 13 December 2003, Xbox Media Player (XBMP) development stopped, by which time its successor, Xbox Media Center (XBMC), was ready for its debut, renamed as it was growing out of its 'player' name and into a 'center' for media playback. On 29 June 2004, the first stable release of XBMC was out, with the official release of Xbox Media Center 1.0.0. This announcement also encouraged everyone using XBMP or XBMC Beta release to update, as all support for those previous versions would be dropped, and they would only support version 1.0.0. Not featured in XBMP, the addition of embedded

Python Python may refer to: Snakes * Pythonidae, a family of nonvenomous snakes found in Africa, Asia, and Australia ** ''Python'' (genus), a genus of Pythonidae found in Africa and Asia * Python (mythology), a mythical serpent Computing * Python (prog ...

was given the ability to draw interface elements in the GUI, and allowed user and community generated scripts to be executed within the XBMC environment. In the middle of 2004, with the release of 1.0.0, work continued on the XBMC project to add more features, such as support for iTunes features like DAAP and Smart Playlists, as well as many improvements and fixes. On 18 October 2004, the second stable release of XBMC, 1.1.0, was out. This release included support for more media types, file types, container formats, as well as video playback of Nullsoft streaming videos and karaoke support (CD-G). On 29 September 2006, after two years of heavy development, XBMC announced a stable point final release of XBMC 2.0.0. Even more features were packed into the new version with the addition of RAR and zip archive support, a brand new player interface with support for multiple players. Such players include PAPlayer, the new audio/music player with crossfade, gapless playback and ReplayGain support, and the new DVDPlayer with support for menu and navigation support as well as ISO/img image parsing. Prior to this point release, XBMC just used a modified fork of

MPlayer MPlayer is a free and open-source media player software application. It is available for Linux, OS X and Microsoft Windows. Versions for OS/2, Syllable Desktop, Syllable, AmigaOS, MorphOS and AROS Research Operating System are also available. A ...

for all of its media needs, so this was a big step forward. Support for iTunes 6.x DAAP, and UPnP Clients for streaming was also added. A reworked Skinning Engine was included in this release to provide a more powerful way to change the appearance of XBMC. The last two features include read-only support for FAT12/16/32 formatted

USB mass storage The USB mass storage device class (also known as USB MSC or UMS) is a set of computing communications protocols, specifically a USB Device Class, defined by the USB Implementers Forum that makes a USB device accessible to a host computing dev ...

devices, and a "skinnable" 3D visualizer. On 12 November 2006, the release of XBMC 2.0.1 contained numerous fixes for bugs that made it through the 2.0.0 release. This also marked the change from CVS to SVN (Subversion) for the development tree. On 29 May 2007, the team behind XBMC put out a call for developers interested in porting XBMC to the Linux operating system. A few developers on Team-XBMC had already begun porting parts of XBMC over to Linux using SDL and OpenGL as a replacement for DirectX, which XBMC was using heavily on the Xbox version of XBMC. On 27 May 2010, the team behind XBMC announced the splitting of the Xbox branch into a new project; "XBMC4Xbox" which will continue the development and support of XBMC for the old Xbox hardware platform as a separate project, with the original XBMC project no longer offering any support for the Xbox. On 2 January 2011, XBMC moved the source code repository from

subversion Subversion () refers to a process by which the values and principles of a system in place are contradicted or reversed in an attempt to sabotage the established social order and its structures of Power (philosophy), power, authority, tradition, h ...

git Git () is a distributed version control system that tracks versions of files. It is often used to control source code by programmers who are developing software collaboratively. Design goals of Git include speed, data integrity, and suppor ...

, hosted at

GitHub GitHub () is a Proprietary software, proprietary developer platform that allows developers to create, store, manage, and share their code. It uses Git to provide distributed version control and GitHub itself provides access control, bug trackin ...

. Development on the Git codebase is continuing and the versioning scheme has been changed to reflect the release year and month, e.g., 8.10, 9.04, 9.11, 10.05. On 1 August 2014, an announcement was made of release 14 and name change to Kodi. On 19 February 2021, version 19 of Kodi is released.

Organization and licensing

The XBMC Foundation is the organization behind the Kodi and XBMC projects. It is legally represented by the

Software Freedom Law Center The Software Freedom Law Center (SFLC) is an organization that provides ''pro bono'' legal representation and related services to not-for-profit developers of free software/open source software. It was launched in February 2005 with Eben Moglen ...

(SFLC), which assists the Kodi/XBMC project and its developers in legal matters such as

intellectual property Intellectual property (IP) is a category of property that includes intangible creations of the human intellect. There are many types of intellectual property, and some countries recognize more than others. The best-known types are patents, co ...

. It also assists with economic issues such as handling donations and sponsors that help the project with expenses for

dedicated hosting service A dedicated hosting service, dedicated server, or managed hosting service is a type of Internet hosting in which the client leases an entire server not shared with anyone else. This is more flexible than shared hosting, as organizations have f ...

and activities such as going to developer conferences, trade fairs and computer expos to tech demo Kodi, meeting with potential new developers, and marketing the software. Kodi's source code is primarily licensed under

s, XBMC core is specifically released as "GPL-2.0-or-later", and is hosted through publicly available

Git Git () is a distributed version control system that tracks versions of files. It is often used to control source code by programmers who are developing software collaboratively. Design goals of Git include speed, data integrity, and suppor ...

repositories. Add-ons, plug-ins and additional extensions such as skins that are released as official resources made by the Kodi project members are released under various free and open source licenses.

Controversies

Use for illegal streaming

Third-party add-ons allow users to stream copyrighted content without the permission of its copyright holder. Some Kodi distributions and hardware devices, often marketed as "fully loaded", are pre-loaded with the software and such add-ons. As a result, some users have incorrectly associated these products and add-ons as being affiliated with the Kodi project. In June 2015,

Amazon Appstore Amazon Appstore is an app store for Android-compatible platforms operated by Amazon.com Services, LLC, a subsidiary of Amazon. On August 20, 2025 the Amazon Appstore will be inaccessible on third party Android devices and apps bought from the Am ...

pulled Kodi, as it can be "used to facilitate the piracy or illegal download of content", even though the software is not bundled with such content. XBMC Foundation president Nathan Betzen disagreed with the assumption, stating that "We always say we don't care what our users do with the software, and we stand by that position. But we sure do hate it when companies destroy the name of our software in order to make a profit." He also considered it ironic that Amazon would ban the app, given that it, in his opinion, helped to bolster the popularity of Amazon Fire TV products. In December 2015, the

Amazon Fire TV Stick Amazon Fire TV (formerly stylized as amazon fireTV) is a line of digital media players and microconsoles developed by Amazon since November 2014. The devices are small network appliances that deliver digital audio and video content streamed via ...

experienced a stock shortage in the United Kingdom that was speculated to have been associated with its use with Kodi. It was also pointed out that Amazon still distributed Kodi distributions with infringing add-ons via the same storefront. As of February 2019 the ban still appears to be in effect. In February 2016, the XBMC Foundation reiterated its stance on third-party Kodi products meant for the streaming of unlicensed content; Betzen explained that the reputation of the Kodi project had been hurt by its association with third-party products whose sellers "make a quick buck modifying Kodi, installing broken piracy add-ons, advertising that Kodi lets you watch free movies and TV, and then vanishing when the user buys the box and finds out that the add-on they were sold on was a crummy, constantly breaking mess." Betzen warned that although it is open source software, the name "Kodi" and its logos are

registered trademark A trademark (also written trade mark or trade-mark) is a form of intellectual property that consists of a word, phrase, symbol, design, or a combination that identifies a product or service from a particular source and distinguishes it from ot ...

s of the XBMC Foundation, and that the foundation intended to strictly enforce its trademark rights to prevent their unauthorized use, especially in association with information and devices meant to enable access to unlicensed content. In April 2017, following an

April Fools' Day April Fools' Day or April Fool's Day (rarely called All Fools' Day) is an annual custom on the 1st of April consisting of practical jokes, hoaxes, and pranks. Jokesters often expose their actions by shouting "April Fool " at the recipient. ...

stunt where the Kodi website was taken down and replaced with a fake domain seizure notice, Kodi's developers stated that they were considering working with legal third-party content providers to officially support their services within Kodi, to counter the perception that the software is primarily used for piracy. In March 2018, Google removed "Kodi" from its

autocomplete Autocomplete, or word completion, is a feature in which an application software, application predicts the rest of a word a user is typing. In Android (operating system), Android and iOS smartphones, this is called predictive text. In graphical us ...

search query, citing that the term was associated with copyright infringement, but failed to remove autocomplete terms for modified, piracy-focused versions of Kodi (that, unlike Kodi, are illegal).

References

External links

* {{DEFAULTSORT:Kodi 2004 software Cross-platform free software Free and open-source Android software Free media players Free mobile software Free software programmed in C++ MacOS media players Software DVD players Software that uses FFmpeg Xbox One software Xbox Series X and Series S software Android (operating system) software Television operating systems

Overview

Hardware requirements

Core features

Live TV with EPG and PVR/DVR frontend

Video playback

Video Library

Video player cores

Audio playback

Music Library

Digital picture/image display

Games Manager and game console emulators

RetroPlayer

Audio, video, and pictures media formats

Format support

Addons Manager, addons and plugins

Plugins and scripts

Metadata extraction and web scrapers

Skins and themes

Web Interfaces

Application launcher

Mobile remotes and second screen apps

Official versions

Native applications

Xbox (first-generation)

Xbox One

Commercial systems

Computer hardware

Dedicated devices

Derivatives and forks

Programming and developing

Architecture

Portability

Python scripts as plugins and addons (widgets and gadgets)

Application programming interface (API)

GUI-engine and skinning (themes)

Software limitations

Reception

History

Organization and licensing

Controversies

Use for illegal streaming

See also

References

External links