New Kodi 15.0 (formerly XBMC) Media Center now available

9 years ago

One of the most interesting pieces of software that I’ve come across in recent times is Kodi, formally known as XBMC. At it’s core, it’s a media center, but you can do many many more things with Kodi than just access and play media from your personal networked library.

We won’t get into how to use or how to setup Kodi, but if you haven’t heard of it (search either Kodi or XBMC) I highly recommend you check it out. If you often watch streaming sporting events in your PC browser, I’m sure you’re sick of pop ups and other nasty advertising that happens on those sites. For you, I suggest reading up on Kodi. There are many other uses, but that’s for a future article.

You can get Kodi for Android devices, which is a virtual clone of the PC version of the software. It’s available now in the Google Play store now. Kodi works on many platforms including Windows, Linux, OS X and Android. Just keep in mind that out of the box, it’s not going to blow you socks off. However, spend some time reading up on the various addons available and you will realize why it’s worthwhile learning about and using.

I wouldn’t rave about Kodi unless I truly loved it. I have my living room PC hooked up to my HDTV via lengthy HDMI cable for a reason. There is also a reason why I’ve done the same in other rooms. I’ve bought wireless keyboards with touchpad for one reason too. Want to guess why?

The new version has a terrific number of improvements including:

A new chapter selector window – Allows you to visually browse and select chapters from mkvs and other containers that support chapters.
Adaptive seeking (aka Skip Steps) – The more times you press a button to seek in a period of time, the larger the jump forward or backward will be.
Audio and Subtitle Lists – For content that includes multiple audio and subtitle choices, you can select from a full list of choices, rather than manually searching through a spinner.
Language Add-ons and Expanded International Preferences – Now language translations aren’t dependent upon release, but get regularly updated to all users as the add-ons themselves update. Additionally, you now have total control over date, time, temperature and more displayed formats.
Improved Add-on Manager – The add-on manager has now been reworked to help make finding the add-ons you are looking for easier.

So you can get the new Kodi version here, of you can get it from the Google Play store for Android devices here.

The best place I’ve found online for tutorials is on SEO Michael. Search his site for tutorials and you will be up and running with some incredible addons for Kodi.