Kodi 19.5 Matrix: Features, Changelog, Download

Kodi 19.5 Matrix has been released and comes with a lot of new features and functionalities. Read our ultimate Kodi 19 guide below to find out about all major changes, new features, the impact on Kodi addons and download links for all platforms.

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Important information about Kodi addons

With Kodi 19 Matrix the media center moves over to Python 3. Python is the programming language all Kodi addons are written in. Since Python 2.7 – the version used up until Kodi 18.9 Leia – has gone out of support the move was a necessary step.

Python 3 has no backwards compatibility which means all existing Kodi addons need to be rewritten by the developers. While it’s highly likely that most of the popular addons eventually get an update to support Kodi 19 some extensions will never work with the new major release.

After a couple of months we can confirm that most popular addons are now supported by Kodi 19.5 Matrix. On top of that a lot of new addons have been released also. We don’t see any reasons why you should not use Kodi 19.

To sum things up: Most Kodi addons are working with Kodi 19 Matrix by now. We highly suggest to install the newest Kodi version for the best experience. If you are using older addons which are not compatible with Kodi 19 you can also stay with the latest Kodi 18 Leia version which is 18.9. Scroll down to find out how to install an older version of Kodi.

Popular addons working with Kodi 19.5 Matrix

Most third party addons are now working with Kodi 19.5 Matrix. In fact many addons – especially new ones –  only support the newest Kodi version exclusively. In our list of the BEST Kodi addons we show you the best addons for your media center.

In our guides and articles we explain step by step how to install addons, apps and other useful tools. If you are not sure how to install a Kodi addon read our dedicated guide which demonstrates the whole process in 3 easy steps, including screenshots.

Kodi 19 Matrix major changes and new features

Please remember that Kodi is an open source and non-commercial project, free to use by everyone. All developers are working in their free time to improve the media center software and add new features on a regular basis.

Some important key figures regarding Kodi 19 Matrix:

• Nearly 50 open source developers contributed to the new version
• 5,000 commits and 1,500 pull requests since Kodi 18 Leia
• 5,500 changed files
• 600,000 lines of code added, changed or removed
• Countless hours of testing, debugging and optimizing

Addons and Scrapers

• Addons must be written in Python 3
• From now on Kodi will enforce the origin of installed addons and their dependencies
  • Third-party repositories are not able anymore to overwrite code of addons installed from a different repository
• XML metadata scrapers for movies and TV shows replaced by new Python scrapers
• New Python scrapers for music

Playback

• Video
  • Support for AV1 video codec
  • HLG HDR and HDR10 support on Windows 10
  • HDR10 and dynamic Dolby Vision HDR support on Android
• Music
  • Improved metadata handling for music
  • New visualizations for music
• Gaming
  • Improved quality of “Pixel Art” games
  • Kodi on iOS supports bluetooth controllers (e.g. PlayStation & Xbox gamepads)

Look and Feel

• Improved default skin (Estuary)
  • Screen redesign
  • New metadata displays
  • Changes to playlist views
  • “Now playing” view
  • Artwork and image files improvements
  • Updates GUI controls

PVR / Live TV

• Significantly improved live TV experience
  • PVR reminders
  • New home screen widgets
  • Enhanced group/channel manager
  • Improved navigation and dialog controls
  • Tags for new/live/finale/premiere
  • Better performance
  • API improvements

Subtitles

• Timestamp overlays fixed
• New dark grey color for subtitles
• Opacity for subtitles can be set

Kodi 19 Latest Updates

Kodi 19.5

• Final release with additional bug fixes – Full changelog on GitHub
• Android: Update not available through Play Store

Kodi 19.4

Estuary Skin

• Home screen context menu fix when more than 10 items are in menu
• Seekbar now disappears after 5 seconds when using a remote app like Kore

Input

• Fixed missing semicolon on English keyboard layout
• Chinese keyboard now displaying correctly

Music

• Fixed artist discography export to NFO files

PVR

• New sort method for recordings based on seasons and episodes
• Fixed crash when navigating through an empty guide
• Corrected behavior of hidden and deleted channel groups

User Interface

• Favorites for a restricted or locked media source are now hidden
• Watched status for Blu-ray ISO files now displaying correctly
• Fixed wrong language identification from subtitle names

Video

• EDL mute now working
• ASS subtitles now displaying correctly

Android

• Audio buffers adjusted
• TrueHD stutters and dropouts correctes

Windows

• Fixed flickering with interlaced H.264 content in SD quality on AMD GPUs
• No more crashes on unexpected network configuration

Linux

• Fixed automatic play of DVDs

MacOS

• Fixed mouse cursor positioning in fullscreen mode

Xbox

• Passthrough audio via WASAPI now possible
• Fixed permission errors when installing Kodi addons

Kodi 19.3

Xbox

• Specific requirements needed for the Microsoft Store have been implemented
• Kodi 19 Matrix for Xbox should be available within the next couple of weeks
• It has been taken care of an expired certificate for Kodi 18.9 on Xbox

Improvements & Bug Fixes

• Fixed a long-standing Dolby Atmos audio issue on platforms that support TrueHD passthrough
• Fixed bug that broke Airplay
• Improvements and fixes regarding gaming, controller and shader issues on Retroplayer
• Fixed bug that affacted thumbnails for watched episodes when hiding spoilers

Linux

• Metadata shown in Linux App Stores improved

Kodi 19.2

PVR

• Fixed crash when accessing invalid PVR channels from favorites
• Fixed crash on startup when searching for missing channel icons
• Fixed crash on startup caused by missing timer type
• Recordings from trash can now be deleted permanently without any errors
• More minor bug fixes

Video Library

• Fixed a bug that deleted Unique IDs when scraping the video library

Games

• More translations for emulators and game controller addons

JSON-RPC

• Expose icon path of EPG tags as “thumbnail” property
• Expose series number of EPG tags as “seasonnum” property

Network

• Websocket handles partial messages

Addons

• Fixed display logic for official and third-party addons / modules

Windows

• Fixed possible crash when switching monitors when Kodi is running
• Fixed not working audio passthrough when “display refresh rate match” is enabled in the settings
• Flip discard swap chain is now used on all Windows 10 systems even if the graphics driver does not support the latest DirectX feature level
• 10-bit swap chain is used on Windows 10 systems by default when a HDR display is detected
• Fixed possible crashes related to WS-Discovery when non-computer devices are attached to the same network as Kodi (e.g. IP cameras)
• Fixed possible crashes when HDR is toggled on or off from Windows display settings
• Fixed no picture or wrong black levels when using specific video drivers with limited range enabled in in conjunction with DXVA2 hardware acceleration and HDR passthrough

Android

• External storage volumes are now visible on devices running old Android versions

Xbox

• Kodi 19.2 Matrix is working with Xbox now! It is the first new version to support the console
• Fixed crash on playback of 4K HEVC videos
• GUI is now rendered in native 4K
• Fixed 4K resolution incorrectly logged as 1920×1080
• Fixed crashes when “Switch display refresh rate at Start/Stop” is enabled with 4K resolution
• Tone mapping now used by default when playing HDR videos
• Fixed missing display refresh rate info on Video Debug Info OSD (Alt + O)
• Fixed internet SSL connectivity
• Improved swap chain performance using DXGI_SWAP_EFFECT_FLIP_DISCARD (DirectX function)
• 10-bit swap chain surfaces are used when the Xbox is connected to a HDR-capable TV
• HEVC DXVA2 decoder performance improved by using 128 byte alingned decoder surfaces

Kodi 19.1

Video

• HDR metadata is now detected in VP9 profile 2 streams; useable on platforms that support HDR passthrough

Discs

• Fixed playback of optical DVDs in Linux
• Fixed Blu-ray chapter skipping via remotes/keyboard

PVR

• Improved look of PVR windows in Estuary skin
• Fixed a not accessible context menu in PVR guide windows when using basic remote
• Fixed graphical user interface not updating when editing/hiding/unhiding/inserting channel groups
• Client channel name and number are now persisting when changed
• Play count and resume position not lost anymore after Kodi restart
• No crashes anymore when using MySQL as EPG database

Music

• Fixed issue with music from cuesheets where only the first track was being added to the library on rescanning

JSON-RPC

• Reintroduced channel property “isrecording” and brodacast properties “hastimer”, “hastimerrule”, “hasrecording”, “recording”

Subtitles

• Fixed detection of system fonts on windows for ASS subtitles (directwrite)
• Fixed detection of user fonts for ASS subtitles (in userdate/fonts folder)
• Fixed rendering of semi-transparent ASS subtitles (Wayland)

GUI / Graphical User Interface

• Fixed media flagging for DVDs and Blu-rays

Web Interface

• Updated Chorus2 based on community contributions

Filesystem

• Improved filecash error handling
• Filecaching enabled by default for network filesystems

Network

• Improved reliability for HTTPS and NFS filesystems

Windows

• Added support for WS-Discovery protocol that enables locating SMB servers and browsing shared folders using SMB 3
• Added debug info OSD video
• Fixed incorrect HDR metadata that could be passed (HDR10 passthrough)
• Fixed green screen on systems with old hardware playing 10-bit videos
• Fixed black screen with activated software render method and DXVA2 hardware acceleration disbaled
• Fixed green screen when playing the menu of some MPEG2 SD DVDs
• Fixed credentials prompt for anonymous SMB shares
• VC runtimes included in the installer to add compatibility with VS2019 and VS2017

Android

• SMB shares mounted on system level are now visible in Kodi
• Fixed SMB shares labelled with cryptic numbers instead of the actual name

Xbox

• Next version (Kodi 19.2 Matrix) will be working with Xbox (Microsoft Store)

Kodi 19.5 Matrix Download Links

Since Kodi 20 Nexus is the current major release you have to download Kodi 19.5 Matrix manually.

Visit the official mirrors subpage for Kodi and select the appropriate folder fitting your platform. There are several legacy versions of Kodi available. The file names are self-explaining, so if you want to download version Kodi 19.5 Matrix make sure the file name contains the text “kodi-19.5-Matrix”.