Is it too late to say “Happy New Year”? Probably, but this is still the first release of 2022, so let’s go with that anyway.
It’s point release o’clock once more, so, without further fanfare, I give you Kodi “Matrix” 19.4: more bug fixes, some backports, no real new features. Full changelog since 19.3 on Github, as usual.
Estuary
Fix: Home screen context menu fix for when there are more than 10 items in menu.
Fix: Seekbar wouldn’t disappear after 5 sec when using remote app e.g. Kore or JSON to pause Kodi.
Input
Fix: English keyboard missing semi-colon.
Fix: Chinese keyboard character now displaying correctly.
Music
Fix: Artist discography export to NFO.
PVR
New: Sort method for recordings based on season and episode.
Fix: Crash when navigating an empty guide.
Fix: Hiding/deleting channel group now working correctly.
UI
Fix: Any Favourites for a restricted/locked media source are now hidden.
Fix: Blu-ray ISO title and watched status now displayed correctly.
Fix: Wrong language identified from subtitle name corrected.
Video
Fix: EDL mute now working.
Fix: ASS subtitles display now working correctly.
Android specifics
Fix: Audio buffers adjusted.
Fix: Various TrueHD stutter/dropout issues corrected.
Linux specifics
Fix: Automatic play of DVDs.
MacOS specifics
Fix: Mouse cursor positioning in full-screen.
Windows specifics
Fix: Flickering with interlaced H.264 SD on AMD GPUs.
Fix: Crash on unexpected network configuration (e.g. no MAC address obtained).
Xbox specifics
New: Passthrough audio via WASAPI.
Fix: Permission error preventing installation of Python add-ons.
Thanks, as always, to everyone who has helped us track down and fix any issues.
As this is a point release, there are no major changes since the previous version, and you should be fine to install this straight over the top of any existing Kodi 19.x installation – indeed, this will happen automatically on many platforms. However, as for all software installations, back up your userdata beforehand if you’ve any doubts or have anything you can’t afford to lose (and definitely do this if you’re going for a major version upgrade).
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 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.
Android Deployment
Please note that we are currently unable to provide this update via the Google Play Store. An updated Google requirement demands that apps now target API level 30 (Android 11) as a minimum, while Kodi targets API level 29 (Android 10).
As such, we’re unable to upload 19.4 to the Play Store, although 19.3 will remain available. However, for those who want the new release, 19.4 can be downloaded from our servers and installed manually:
Make Your Business Bigger On The Outside With This Technology
When you’re running a small business, there’s one concept you should keep in mind. You need to make your company the opposite of a tardis. If you’re not familiar, the tardis is the police box that Doctor Who travels through space and time in. While on the outside it looks like an old-fashioned telephone box, on the inside, it’s massive. It has multiple rooms and at one point there’s the mention of a swimming pool. There are even episodes of the show where people get lost in the many halls of the tardis.
When you’re running a small business you don’t want it to be bigger on the inside and smaller on the outside. You want it to be big on the outside and smaller on the inside. What do we mean by this?
Essentially, we’re thinking about the impression that you create with your company on the market. When you are running a small business, you’re still going to be competing with the major players in an industry or sector. A small e-commerce website that sells garden tools will still be competing with Amazon where customers can get similar tools among other products. How can your business compete on such a massive playing field? You need to ensure that your business makes a big impression even if your budget and your company model as a whole is quite small. Here are some of the ways that you can achieve this goal.
First, you should make sure that you think about using a virtual office. This is useful if you are running a home company or if you are running your business from a small address that isn’t going to create much of an impression. With a virtual office, you can make it seem as though your business is being run from a major city address. This will mean that it looks as though your business is either more successful or being run with a far larger budget than what you are likely working with.
Virtual offices are scalable solutions which means that they will fit in with virtually any business budget. As such, you won’t have to worry about struggling to cover the cost. It essentially allows you to get the business of both worlds. Your company will be more flexible overall because you’ll be working from home but you’ll have the profile of a major city company.
Do be aware that there are other smaller options here to consider as well such as virtual numbers. These do the same job for a fraction of the cost and are often used by solopreneurs.
Cloud Solutions
Next, you should make sure that you are exploring cloud solutions in your business model. Cloud solutions and services will guarantee that your business operates at a far faster speed. That’s important because it means that customers and clients won’t be left waiting around for the services and solutions that they want or need. Indeed, there are many benefits of using a cloud solution in your business from advanced levels of security to instant updates. You can use a cloud solution to stay on track with every aspect of your company.
It’s worth noting that these days many businesses are not just relying on one cloud solution. Instead, they are focused on using a multi-cloud setup. There are a few reasons for this. The first is that it ensures that a business is more flexible on the market. It can also help ensure that a business is able to recover from downtime. That’s critical because high levels of downtime will always hurt your business and make it seem inferior to key competitors that exist on the market.
With a cloud solution, you can complete a full disaster recovery of a critical workstation in a matter of minutes.
Another way that you can make your business look bigger to clients is by ensuring that you provide immediate levels of engagement for them. Customers don’t want to be left waiting for a response from your business. The general rule of thumb here is that you should be responding to a query from a customer or client in about 24 hours. Any longer than this and you can all but guarantee that the client has disappeared to a competitor and found the answer that they were searching for.
So, how can you ensure that you are providing immediate engagement? Well, you can set up an automated response for options like email queries. You can also consider exploring options like call handling solutions. Most of these are at least partially automated but they still make your customers feel as though they have an avenue to connect with your business.
You might also want to think about using web chat software on your website. With an option like this, you can make sure that you are able to give customers a direct line of communication to your company.
Beautiful Website
When it comes to getting customers you need to have an amazing website that draws them in. It ideally needs to be bright, eye-catching, and easy to use. If users find your website difficult to navigate then they will take their custom elsewhere.
There are lots of points to think about when making your website attractive and appealing. For instance, you should think about the colors as well as the fonts. You can also use videos to make your website more immersive and engaging.
One point that you definitely want to avoid is using a template solution. Template web designers are often popular with small business owners because they are free. So, it’s a great way to keep the costs under control when marketing your company and this is important. However, the problem is that it results in all websites looking more or less the same. This means that it will be difficult if not impossible to ensure that your business stands out. These days there’s no reason to use a template for your website. Particularly, when you can use different tools to design your own awesome website in less than an hour that will feel unique.
Next, you should think about outsourcing in your business. Through outsourcing, you can get the expertise in your company to help it stand out for a fraction of the cost that you would expect to pay if you were hiring a complete, full-time team in your company.
Technology has made outsourcing easier than ever because it’s possible to find the experts that you need within minutes of searching the market. There are countless platforms that will help put you in touch with the pros in different sectors and fields.
As well as being able to hire professionals who will help propel your business forward, tech these days also allows you to handle every aspect of the connection. You can contact them, pay them and track them, often all through the same app or platform. This means that you have more control over the services that you are using. It also helps you to avoid some of the common issues that can crop up when using outsourcing services in a business.
Specifically, we’re talking about high costs and low-quality work. If you can’t get an outsourcing service for the right price then there’s no point in using it at all. Similarly, a low-quality solution could damage your business in the long term.
Security
Finally, making your business seem bigger isn’t about spending a lot of money. Instead, it’s about spending money in the right areas. You need to focus your budget on the areas that matter to your customers and clients. A key example of this would be security. Today, customers are paranoid and worried about security threats. They’re right to be concerned about this too because research shows that hacks on businesses are more common than ever before.
You might assume that small businesses are going to be ignored when it comes to hacks. However, this isn’t the case. Instead, it’s common for small companies to be targeted because criminals know or at least expect, that they won’t have the right standards of security.
You can’t afford to prove them right because if you do then it will send the wrong message about your business to your customers. It will make your company seem weaker and customers will wonder whether they can trust you. Luckily, tech is providing the answer here too. The right technology will mean that you can fill in the gaps that might exist in your security setup to ensure that your customers are protected.
We hope this helps you understand why you need to ensure that your company is the opposite of a tardis and does look bigger on the outside. In doing so, you can ensure that you are able to gain the attention of a larger audience and increase your sales. This could even help you reach expansion goals overtime when running your company.
https://dimitrology.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/02/pexels-photo-5256816.jpeg6671000Dimitrologyhttps://dimitrology.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/11/WEBSITE-LOGO-2020-SMALL.pngDimitrology2022-02-18 11:27:322022-02-18 11:27:36Make Your Business Bigger On The Outside With This Technology
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
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.
https://dimitrology.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/12/google_tv_logo_1.png12502500Dimitrologyhttps://dimitrology.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/11/WEBSITE-LOGO-2020-SMALL.pngDimitrology2021-12-07 16:31:172021-12-07 16:32:12Google brings 300 free channels to Google TV
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.
https://dimitrology.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/11/emily-morter-8xaa0f9yqne-unsplash-scaled.jpg17072560Dimitrologyhttps://dimitrology.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/11/WEBSITE-LOGO-2020-SMALL.pngDimitrology2021-11-12 21:47:582021-11-12 21:47:58The Votes Have Been Counted and Verified…
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.
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:
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).
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.
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.
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.
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).
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.
