Google brings 300 free channels to Google TV

Google announced in a blog post yesterday a new partnership with Pluto TV to bring over 300 free TV channels to devices running the Google TV platform in the US. The new channels will appear in the “Live” tab on the Google TV home screen in the next weeks.

What is Pluto TV

Google TV partners with Pluto tv

Pluto TV is a free streaming service owned by ViacomCBS, which is the parent company of several popular film companies and television production networks. It offers content from networks like Comedy Central, AMC, Nickelodeon and MTV through live video streaming channels and on-demand functionality. That is without a monthly subscription fee. Instead, Pluto TV makes money off the advertising it is able to sell during these streaming broadcasts.

“This new integration with Pluto TV will be available on all Google TV devices in the coming weeks,” Google noted in its blog post. So you might want to sit tight and wait if it’s not available on your device right now.

The Mountain View company is also offering a couple more Google TV perks, such as six months of free Peacock Premium in the US and a variety of ad-supported movies on YouTube.
And if that’s not enough, Google is planning to offer more ways to watch content for free in 2022. Looks like we just have to wait and see what else is coming in the months to come.

Google TV streaming services and apps (USA)

  • ABC
  • Amazon Prime Video
  • AMC
  • Apple TV+
  • A&E
  • BET+
  • Comedy Central
  • Crackle
  • Crunchyroll/Funimation
  • DC Universe
  • Disney NOW
  • Disney+
  • Epix Now
  • Fox Now
  • FuboTV
  • Google Play Movies (now Google TV)
  • Hulu
  • HBO Go
  • HBO Max
  • History
  • Kocowa
  • Lifetime
  • MTV
  • NBC
  • Pantaya
  • Paramount+ (formerly CBS All Access)
  • Peacock
  • Philo
  • Pluto TV
  • Showtime
  • Showtime Anytime
  • Sling TV
  • Starz
  • TBS
  • The CW
  • TNT
  • Tubi TV
  • Viki/Rakuten
  • VH1
  • YouTube
  • YouTube TV

More Android TV apps

You can download more Android TV apps available for Android TV in our dedicated Download section here.

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The Votes Have Been Counted and Verified…


Credit: Photo by Emily Morter on Unsplash

Many of you will probably be aware that, since the dawn of time, each version of Kodi takes a vaguely sci-fi/fantasy/movie-themed name, in alphabetical order (Ed: no, don’t ask what happens after we get to Z). This has become common practice throughout the IT industry – look at iOS, Android, Ubuntu, Intel chips, and similar: it provides a useful and friendly way to refer to a release without getting tied up in numbers and decimal points.

Anyway, over the past 13 years or so we’ve chewed through Atlantis, Babylon, Camelot, Dharma, Eden, Frodo, Gotham, Helix, Isengard, Jarvis, Krypton, Leia and Matrix … and, as we branch the code for the next release, it’s time to bestow a name on our next version.

We ran a thread on the forum (thank you to everyone for their suggestions), filtered them for repetition, our ability to remember how to type them, and general scandal, and then put the top community-suggested names to a Team vote.

While we’ve previously had very specific names, this one is perhaps a little broader in its reference.

So, is it…

  • A series designator for replicants?
  • An extra-dimensional realm that exists outside of space and time, visited by both Kirk and Picard?
  • A post-cyberpunk trilogy by Ramez Naam?
  • A dungeon in World of Warcraft?
  • The heart of every protoss settlement in StarCraft?
  • All of the above, and perhaps more?

Ladies, gentlemen, non-binary, non-human, and inorganic lifeforms… I give you …

Kodi 20 “Nexus”

< muted fanfare >

Don’t get too excited about a new version dropping any time soon, as 19.x “Matrix” is still fresh out of the oven. However, you now know what’s coming, and, if you’re inclined, you can now follow development of this specific branch.



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Switching Translations to Weblate


Photo by Edurne Chopeitia on Unsplash

The moment is here to move to an even more optimal translation service for our application. Ultimately we have chosen Weblate, and its service will be hosted at https://kodi.weblate.cloud/.

This is done to optimize our workflow and to allow easy inclusion of all add-ons in the official Kodi add-on repository.

The transition has taken its time during at least the last year, so if you have made any requests at Transifex for new languages or team additions in that period, we’re sorry we couldn’t implement them.

All current translations have been transferred to Weblate, and we would like to thank you for all your efforts in making Kodi the multi-lingual success it is. We hope you will join us in our revived efforts to make Kodi accessible to even more languages using Weblate.

For now, our most current resources at Transifex are locked, meaning translators will no longer have access. The final switch over to Weblate is planned for July the 14th, 2021. We hope to see you all there.

Please sign up at Weblate here:

https://kodi.weblate.cloud/accounts/register/

You can visit this forum post to let us know which language team you would like access to (and if you are a coordinator for that language): https://forum.kodi.tv/showthread.php?tid=363132

We encourage all add-on developers with add-ons in the official Kodi add-on repository to submit their add-ons for translation: https://forum.kodi.tv/showthread.php?tid=363251&pid=3045468#pid3045468

Best regards,

The Kodi Translations Team



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Hacktoberfest 2021


Hacktoberfest 2021 Logo

October… the month that gave birth to the world’s most famous and traditional beer festival. What’s possibly better than two weeks of collective beer drinking? Under normal circumstances…probably nothing. In the so called new normal? Let’s pretend we can tolerate a bit more of this social awkwardness and find an alternative way: let’s just celebrate beer… and open-source. Or in Team Kodi’s dictionary: just another month at the office :)

For yet another year, Kodi is participating as a project in Hacktoberfest. Hacktoberfest is a month-long celebration of open source software run by DigitalOcean. During the month of October, individuals are invited to join open-source software enthusiasts, beginners, and the developer community by contributing to open-source projects. Additionally, Hacktoberfest also promotes several meetups, virtual events or hackatons to celebrate our beloved FOSS. Free swag (or planting a tree with your name if you feel inclined) usually comes to those who are able to finish the challenge (4 valid code contributions/pull-requests to eligible repositories) throughout the month of Hacktober.

How to get started?

Head over to the event website and have a read over the provided resources. For Kodi, a good starting point is our exhaustive list of open issues. Team Kodi members (maintainers) will make sure that all the code submissions that take place during the month of October towards our eligible repositories are labeled with the hacktoberfest-accepted label in case they are valid. Please don’t abuse your luck: spam contributions will be tracked and marked invalid, making you ineligible for the competition!

What are Kodi-eligible repositories?

If you’d like to do some C++ you can send your code contributions to:

If you want to work on Java/Android:

More of an iOS/objective-c person:

Typescript/Gatsby?

Pythonista over there?

Are you a Kodi addon developer?

You can submit your addon (or updating your existing addons with new features or bug fixes) to the Kodi official addon repository:

What you should do after reading this blog post

Fill your beer glass, cheers to open-source and… start hacking!



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Kodi "Matrix" 19.2 Release



It’s been some time since we released 19.1, and numerous issues have revealed themselves and been resolved in the intervening months. As such, we’re probably overdue a formal release of the updates, so, without further ado – here’s the latest release in the “Matrix” series.

As with other point releases, don’t go looking for new features, as that isn’t really the purpose here. Full details are on GitHub, but here’s the short form…

PVR

  • Fixed: crash when accessing invalid PVR channel from favourites
  • Fixed: crash on startup while searching for missing channel icons
  • Fixed: crash on startup caused by missing timer type
  • Fixed: “Delete permanently” of recordings from trash
  • Other, more minor bug fixes

Video Library

  • Fixed a bug that deleted UniqueID’s when scraping the library, which caused unexpected behaviour for addons relying on those ID’s

Games

  • Added translations for emulators and game controller add-ons

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

Add-ons

  • Fixed: display logic for official and third-party modules

Windows specifics

  • Fixed: possible crash when switching monitors due to adding/removing hardware.
  • Fixed: audio passthrough not working (randomly) on some systems when display refresh rate match is enabled.
  • Improved: flip discard swap chain is used on all Windows 10 systems even if graphics driver does not support latest DirectX feature levels.
  • Improved: 10-bit swap chain is used by default on Windows 10 systems when HDR display is detected (for 8-bit SDR video sources too).
  • Fixed: possible crash related to WS-Discovery when non-computer devices (e.g. IP cameras) are attached to the same network.
  • Fixed: possible crash when HDR is toggled on/off externally from Windows 10 display settings.
  • Fixed: no picture or wrong black level with some video drivers when limited range output is enabled in conjunction with hardware acceleration DXVA2 and HDR passthrough.

Android specifics

  • Fixed: external storage volumes not visible on devices running old Android versions

Xbox specifics

The big news here is that we can finally make 19.x “Matrix” available on the Xbox – thanks for putting up with the delay while we fixed the blockers!

  • Fixed: crash on playback of 4K HEVC videos due to out-of-memory condition.
  • Fixed: GUI rendered at 1080 and upscaled to 4K instead of native 4K.
  • Fixed: 4K resolution is incorrectly reported in logs as 1920×1080.
  • Fixed: crash when “Switch display refresh rate at Start/Stop” is enabled with 4K resolution.
  • Fixed: tone mapping not used by default at playback HDR videos.
  • Fixed: missing display refresh rate info on Video Debug Info OSD (Alt+O).
  • Fixed: Internet SSL connectivity not working due not usable path to built-in CA certs bundle.
  • Improved: swap chain performance using DXGISWAPEFFECTFLIPDISCARD.
  • Improved: 10-bit swap chain surfaces are used if an HDR-capable TV is detected (even for 8-bit SDR videos).
  • Improved: HEVC DXVA2 decoder performance using 128 byte aligned decoder surfaces.

Thanks, as always, to everyone who has helped by reporting, isolating or fixing issues.

You should be fine to install this straight over the top of your existing Kodi version – indeed, this will happen automatically on many platforms – but, if you’ve any doubts, back up your userdata beforehand. Similarly, this is a minor version bump, so there’s no change to database versions or anything similar on the vast majority of platforms; the exception is obviously Xbox, where users need to be aware that, for them, this is a major upgrade (18.9 to 19.2).

If you’re interested, you can read the merged PRs here. If you want to read back on the full history of v19 itself, or of previous versions, you can find the corresponding articles in the relevant blog posts.

Application deployment on different platforms (notably, Google Play and the Microsoft Store) can vary considerably due to circumstances outside of our control, so just be patient, and the update will inevitably find its way through.



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Kodi "Matrix" 19.3 Release



Okay, we know that we’ve only just released 19.2, and some of you are probably even still waiting for that, but that’s a big part of the reason we need to push out a new build. We still had some challenges with the Xbox release, and some other issues came to light that we didn’t want to ignore – so, rather than get into platform-specific point releases, we thought we’d just nudge up to 19.3 and go for it.

As with other point releases, don’t go looking for new features, as that isn’t really the purpose here. Full details are on GitHub, but here’s the short form…

  • We’ve had some challenges getting the Xbox version released because of some specific platform requirements needed for 4k/HEVC playback. With the help of @CelesAtXbox (thanks so much!) we think we’ve now genuinely got those covered to Microsoft’s satisfaction, and can finally get this into the Windows Store.
  • There’s also an issue with an expired certificate for 18.9 on Xbox, which effectively takes that version off that platform for new installations, so timing is opportune to fix that.
  • There’s been a long-standing Atmos audio issue on all platforms that support TrueHD passthrough – we know that this this has been irritating people for some time, and we’ve now been able to fix this.
  • We unintentionally introduced a bug in 19.2 that broke Airplay, so we’ve fixed that one.
  • A couple of gaming-related fixes, notably a controller fix and some shader issues on Retroplayer.
  • We’ve fixed a bug that affected thumbnails for watched episodes when hiding episode spoilers.
  • We’ve much improved the metadata shown in Linux app stores.

Thanks, as always, to everyone who has helped by reporting, isolating or fixing issues.

You should be fine to install this straight over the top of your existing Kodi version – indeed, this will happen automatically on many platforms – but, if you’ve any doubts, back up your userdata beforehand. Similarly, this is a minor version bump, so there’s no change to database versions or anything similar on the vast majority of platforms; the exception here is obviously if you’re getting your first taste of a major upgrade (i.e. 18.x to 19.x).

If you’re interested, you can read the merged PRs here. If you want to read back on the full history of v19 itself, or of previous versions, you can find the corresponding articles in the relevant blog posts.

Application deployment on different platforms (notably, Google Play and the Microsoft Store) can vary considerably due to circumstances outside of our control, so just be patient, and the update will inevitably find its way through.



Source link

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Kodi "Matrix" 19.3 Release



Okay, we know that we’ve only just released 19.2, and some of you are probably even still waiting for that, but that’s a big part of the reason we need to push out a new build. We still had some challenges with the Xbox release, and some other issues came to light that we didn’t want to ignore – so, rather than get into platform-specific point releases, we thought we’d just nudge up to 19.3 and go for it.

As with other point releases, don’t go looking for new features, as that isn’t really the purpose here. Full details are on GitHub, but here’s the short form…

  • We’ve had some challenges getting the Xbox version released because of some specific platform requirements needed for 4k/HEVC playback. With the help of @CelesAtXbox (thanks so much!) we think we’ve now genuinely got those covered to Microsoft’s satisfaction, and can finally get this into the Windows Store.
  • There’s also an issue with an expired certificate for 18.9 on Xbox, which effectively takes that version off that platform for new installations, so timing is opportune to fix that.
  • There’s been a long-standing Atmos audio issue on all platforms that support TrueHD passthrough – we know that this this has been irritating people for some time, and we’ve now been able to fix this.
  • We unintentionally introduced a bug in 19.2 that broke Airplay, so we’ve fixed that one.
  • A couple of gaming-related fixes, notably a controller fix and some shader issues on Retroplayer.
  • We’ve fixed a bug that affected thumbnails for watched episodes when hiding episode spoilers.
  • We’ve much improved the metadata shown in Linux app stores.

Thanks, as always, to everyone who has helped by reporting, isolating or fixing issues.

You should be fine to install this straight over the top of your existing Kodi version – indeed, this will happen automatically on many platforms – but, if you’ve any doubts, back up your userdata beforehand. Similarly, this is a minor version bump, so there’s no change to database versions or anything similar on the vast majority of platforms; the exception here is obviously if you’re getting your first taste of a major upgrade (i.e. 18.x to 19.x).

If you’re interested, you can read the merged PRs here. If you want to read back on the full history of v19 itself, or of previous versions, you can find the corresponding articles in the relevant blog posts.

Application deployment on different platforms (notably, Google Play and the Microsoft Store) can vary considerably due to circumstances outside of our control, so just be patient, and the update will inevitably find its way through.





Source link

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Kodi "Matrix" 19.2 Release



It’s been some time since we released 19.1, and numerous issues have revealed themselves and been resolved in the intervening months. As such, we’re probably overdue a formal release of the updates, so, without further ado – here’s the latest release in the “Matrix” series.

As with other point releases, don’t go looking for new features, as that isn’t really the purpose here. Full details are on GitHub, but here’s the short form…

PVR

  • Fixed: crash when accessing invalid PVR channel from favourites
  • Fixed: crash on startup while searching for missing channel icons
  • Fixed: crash on startup caused by missing timer type
  • Fixed: “Delete permanently” of recordings from trash
  • Other, more minor bug fixes

Video Library

  • Fixed a bug that deleted UniqueID’s when scraping the library, which caused unexpected behaviour for addons relying on those ID’s

Games

  • Added translations for emulators and game controller add-ons

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

Add-ons

  • Fixed: display logic for official and third-party modules

Windows specifics

  • Fixed: possible crash when switching monitors due to adding/removing hardware.
  • Fixed: audio passthrough not working (randomly) on some systems when display refresh rate match is enabled.
  • Improved: flip discard swap chain is used on all Windows 10 systems even if graphics driver does not support latest DirectX feature levels.
  • Improved: 10-bit swap chain is used by default on Windows 10 systems when HDR display is detected (for 8-bit SDR video sources too).
  • Fixed: possible crash related to WS-Discovery when non-computer devices (e.g. IP cameras) are attached to the same network.
  • Fixed: possible crash when HDR is toggled on/off externally from Windows 10 display settings.
  • Fixed: no picture or wrong black level with some video drivers when limited range output is enabled in conjunction with hardware acceleration DXVA2 and HDR passthrough.

Android specifics

  • Fixed: external storage volumes not visible on devices running old Android versions

Xbox specifics

The big news here is that we can finally make 19.x “Matrix” available on the Xbox – thanks for putting up with the delay while we fixed the blockers!

  • Fixed: crash on playback of 4K HEVC videos due to out-of-memory condition.
  • Fixed: GUI rendered at 1080 and upscaled to 4K instead of native 4K.
  • Fixed: 4K resolution is incorrectly reported in logs as 1920×1080.
  • Fixed: crash when “Switch display refresh rate at Start/Stop” is enabled with 4K resolution.
  • Fixed: tone mapping not used by default at playback HDR videos.
  • Fixed: missing display refresh rate info on Video Debug Info OSD (Alt+O).
  • Fixed: Internet SSL connectivity not working due not usable path to built-in CA certs bundle.
  • Improved: swap chain performance using DXGISWAPEFFECTFLIPDISCARD.
  • Improved: 10-bit swap chain surfaces are used if an HDR-capable TV is detected (even for 8-bit SDR videos).
  • Improved: HEVC DXVA2 decoder performance using 128 byte aligned decoder surfaces.

Thanks, as always, to everyone who has helped by reporting, isolating or fixing issues.

You should be fine to install this straight over the top of your existing Kodi version – indeed, this will happen automatically on many platforms – but, if you’ve any doubts, back up your userdata beforehand. Similarly, this is a minor version bump, so there’s no change to database versions or anything similar on the vast majority of platforms; the exception is obviously Xbox, where users need to be aware that, for them, this is a major upgrade (18.9 to 19.2).

If you’re interested, you can read the merged PRs here. If you want to read back on the full history of v19 itself, or of previous versions, you can find the corresponding articles in the relevant blog posts.

Application deployment on different platforms (notably, Google Play and the Microsoft Store) can vary considerably due to circumstances outside of our control, so just be patient, and the update will inevitably find its way through.





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Hacktoberfest 2021


Hacktoberfest 2021 Logo

October… the month that gave birth to the world’s most famous and traditional beer festival. What’s possibly better than two weeks of collective beer drinking? Under normal circumstances…probably nothing. In the so called new normal? Let’s pretend we can tolerate a bit more of this social awkwardness and find an alternative way: let’s just celebrate beer… and open-source. Or in Team Kodi’s dictionary: just another month at the office :)

For yet another year, Kodi is participating as a project in Hacktoberfest. Hacktoberfest is a month-long celebration of open source software run by DigitalOcean. During the month of October, individuals are invited to join open-source software enthusiasts, beginners, and the developer community by contributing to open-source projects. Additionally, Hacktoberfest also promotes several meetups, virtual events or hackatons to celebrate our beloved FOSS. Free swag (or planting a tree with your name if you feel inclined) usually comes to those who are able to finish the challenge (4 valid code contributions/pull-requests to eligible repositories) throughout the month of Hacktober.

How to get started?

Head over to the event website and have a read over the provided resources. For Kodi, a good starting point is our exhaustive list of open issues. Team Kodi members (maintainers) will make sure that all the code submissions that take place during the month of October towards our eligible repositories are labeled with the hacktoberfest-accepted label in case they are valid. Please don’t abuse your luck: spam contributions will be tracked and marked invalid, making you ineligible for the competition!

What are Kodi-eligible repositories?

If you’d like to do some C++ you can send your code contributions to:

If you want to work on Java/Android:

More of an iOS/objective-c person:

Typescript/Gatsby?

Pythonista over there?

Are you a Kodi addon developer?

You can submit your addon (or updating your existing addons with new features or bug fixes) to the Kodi official addon repository:

What you should do after reading this blog post

Fill your beer glass, cheers to open-source and… start hacking!





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Important Things To Prepare For A Holiday

When planning your next holiday, there are a lot of things to get ready as well as things to consider doing before you leave. Going on holiday is always exciting but you also need to take the time to prepare a few things ahead of time to make your life easier. 

Today we are going to take a look at some of the things you can prepare in advance of your next trip away. 

Gather essential phone numbers 

The first thing you should consider doing before you go away on holiday is to find out some information about your destination. In case of an emergency it would be good for you to have phone numbers for the local doctors, hospital, chemist, and local taxi service should you need this while you are away. 

Check the weather 

The next thing you should do in the week leading up to your holiday is check a weather api to ensure that you are prepared for the climate and weather conditions when you get to your destination. It is likely that you will be going somewhere warmer, but always be aware of harsh storms at certain times of the year and be sure you have a raincoat with you! 

Pack for every occasion 

Packing your bag for your holiday might seem easy, but a good way to organise your thoughts is to write a list of what you are packing and ensure you check things off as they go into your bag. You can also take a list with you at the other end to ensure that when you pack up to go home you don’t forget anything important. 

Clean the house 

As you approach the last few days before you head on holiday – one thing you should consider is cleaning your house. Now is the best time to give your house a proper clean and it will allow you to come back to a home that is clean and tidy instead of one full of dust, dirt, and clutter. Clean now, and you’ll be thankful for it later on. 

Bring some food 

When you head off for your plane, it is important to bring some food along with you that you can snack on. You might end up with a plane meal during the flight however you can’t guarantee how long it will take before you are able to get on your plane. Bringing along a few different snacks such as a sandwich, fruit, and nuts will make your wait a little less painful and will also ensure that you have something healthy and nutritious along the way. 

Plan travel 

Travel is the most important and sometimes the most stressful part of your holiday. You first need to plan your flights to your chosen destination and then from this you’ll need a taxi to the airport as well as some way of getting from the destination airport to your hotel. Take the time to decide whether or not a rented car would be worth it, and ensure all of your travel plans are set in stone a little way before you go. 

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