Kodi 20 has officially been updated by the Kodi development team with an “Alpha 3” release.
The following article shows the new features, updates, and changes within Kodi 20 which have been pulled directly from the official Kodi Website.
Important Note: This is NOT a stable version of the Kodi software.  This is a pre-release which means it is still in development and there will be bugs/issues.  Kodi 19.4 is the most stable release of Kodi.
The press release from the official Kodi website states the following on the “Alpha” release of Kodi 20 Nexus:
“This is a major release, so, as you’d expect, it comes with many new features. However, it will inevitably cause problems for some people, which is why we’ll go through a more traditional Alpha/Beta/Release Candidate model.
As such, then, please be aware that installing this will inevitably break things, and we’d really like your help at that point to identify the problems and get them fixed.”
Since this is an “Alpha” release we don’t recommend updating your current version of Kodi, especially if your current setup is working well. Version 20 has not yet been officially released and is still in the development phase.
Important – KODIFIREIPTVhas tested Kodi 20 with various 3rd party add-ons and many of them do not work properly.
Kodi 20 brings numerous new features to this popular software on all of its compatible devices. The Kodi Nexus developers have done a fantastic job squashing a large number of bugs in a quick period of time.
Below are the bug fixes and new features pulled directly from the official Kodi Website.

Kodi 20 – New Features, Fixes, and Updates

Alpha 3 Release Notes

On September 18th, 2022, the official Kodi Website released an Alpha 3 version of Kodi 20.
See the list of release notes below.
Addons

Some crashes in addon installation and repository checks have been corrected (ksooo, howie-f)
AlwinEsch has implemented a large feature to allow multiple instances of the same binary addon.This allows, for example, two instances of a PVR addon (e.g. PVR.HTS) to run using different backend provider instances. The usage of this will require updates from the various binary addons that will start to happen, so if you are interested in helping your favourite PVR addon to implement this, check out the above PVR.HTS PR, as well as the following PVR.Demo PR

Database

ksooo has been optimising various things in our db wrappers for better performance

DVD

Fix DVD Menu indicators for DRMPrime

Filesystem

Fix NFS for Windows platforms after some recent NFS updates
Several NFS improvements/cleanups
Initial NFS4 implementation

Font/Glyh

Several improvements around our Font/Glyph Handling code from several team members (ksooo, thexai, sarbes) – improvements that should help low power machines in particular, but all platforms generally.
Harbuzz glyph caching improvements
Fix some inconsistencies with RTL languages and certain skinning components

Games

Improvements/cleanups regarding controllers
Fix crash if controller info files don’t have correct info

General

Rechi has done a bunch of leg work implementing improvements from Static analysis tools like CPPCheck and ClangTidy
Remove obsolete addons from Core Kodi Nexus install
Fix wrong player playlist type for STRM file playback

Input

Fix using mouse to drag/drop some controls

Platform Specific

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Linux GBM

Ability to set HDR Output

MacOS

Allow the OSX arm64 (Apple Silicon) build to correctly find appropriate binary addons from repositories.

Windows

Fix incorrect window positioning when transitioning window to fullscreen and back

PVR

ksooo continues updating/refining/fixing all things PVR related

Skinning

Estuary

Show titles when “Flatten Hierarchy” setting enabled

Subtitles

Further improvements/refinements to subtitles from CastagnaIT

Video

Install Kodi 20 with the KODIFIREIPTVApp

If you do want to install Kodi 20 and test it out, you can do this through the free KODIFIREIPTVRapid App Installer.
The free KODIFIREIPTVapp may be installed on any Android-based device including Fire TV Stick, Fire TV, Fire TV Cube, NVIDIA SHIELD, Android phones, and tablets.
The KODIFIREIPTVApp includes the Rapid App Installer which allows you to install all of the best streaming apps and tools in a matter of minutes.
You will also find Troy’s latest videos as well as an Internet Speed Test tool.

Get the Free KODIFIREIPTVApp with the Rapid App Installer & More

Kodi 20 Download Links

For Firestick and Fire TV Users, the following links will provide you with installation guides and updating guides for your preferred device:
When using the install method linked below, you must choose Kodi 20 Nexus from the Rapid App Installer.
How to install Kodi on a Firestick

Windows

64-Bit
32-Bit

MacOS

64-Bit

iOS (Must have jailbroken device)

ARM32 is no longer supported in Kodi 19 and beyond.
ARM64

Linux

Use the following commands in your Linux/Ubuntu terminal to install Kodi 20.  Follow the prompts as you would with any other software installation.
sudo apt install software-properties-common
sudo add-apt-repository -y ppa:team-xbmc/xbmc-nightly
sudo apt install kodi

Fire TV/Cube/Stick

Kodi on Firestick Guide
Remember, by installing a repository, you will have the freedom to choose different streaming add-ons for your enjoyment. TROYPOINT’s list of the Best Kodi Add-ons can be found by clicking the link below.
Best Kodi Add-Ons
If you are looking for a simple way to install the best add-ons and repositories quickly and efficiently, I suggest using a Kodi Build. Click the link below for a list of the Best Kodi Builds at this time.
Best Kodi Builds

Kodi 20 Alpha 2 Release Notes

On July 10, 2022, the official Kodi website released an “Alpha 2” version of Kodi 20.
See the list of release notes below.
Android Platform

Fix a stutter when the Kodi Nexus Android app was opened, closed, and opened again. One of our team members noticed an issue with a recent PR that caused media stuttering to occur only after the app was opened and closed and reopened again without a force close. We have come up with a fix, so hopefully, playback should be a better experience over Alpha 1.
Another TrueHD fix – buffers reduced to a specific level to optimize data throughput
More local app icons should render fully in Kodi Nexus
Fix a packaging error for binary python modules (pycryptodome)

Xbox Platform

Fixes some specific H.265 video crashes

Python

Android and Apple systems have had their Python version bumped to 3.9.13 in accordance with the latest release of the CPython 3.9 series. Of note, there have been fixes by the CPython team specifically for issues raised by Kodi Nexus community members around some crashes. Thanks to those members raising the upstream issues, and the fantastic CPython team for fixing them.
Please note, that this does not affect any of our Windows releases, or if you are using Linux.

Filesystems

Fix a regression that caused thumbnails to not appear when accessed from “remote” filesystems (e.g. WebDAV)

Closed Captions

Fix an instance of Closed Captions not working. A forum member was able to provide an extremely helpful sample that allowed us to track down an issue with closed captions not working correctly. Incidentally, this also fixes Closed Captions for some Inputstream.Adaptive streams.

Subtitles

Bluray

Thumbnail Images

Reduce “quality” of thumbnail creation
NOTE: An advanced setting is available for those users who wish to alter the default further. More information can be found on the wiki.

Skinning

A couple of skinning changes have been introduced
Skin timers
Removal of player.DisplayAfterSeek
Skip border infill
Moving speed
Diffuse fading animations
VideoPlayer.Art(type) and positional variants

Kodi 20 Alpha 1 Release Notes

The “Alpha 1” version of Kodi 20 Nexus was released on May 16, 2022. See the full list of updates below.
Video

AV1 hardware decoding for Android
AV1 hardware decoding for Linux via VAAPI
Bump to FFMPEG 4.4

Subtitles

Add new font style settings such as border size/color, background type/color/opacity, shadow color/opacity, and blur
Add support to display subtitles with dynamic positions which make use of position tags
Add underlined and strikethrough text style support
Add a new wide color palette in color settings
Add a new setting to change text alignment for closed caption subtitles for a better reading
Add a new setting to override subtitles metadata like style and position
Improved font size that now match the point/pixel proportion
When Kodi is in windowed mode subtitles are now always displayed correctly
Improved VPlayer for better reading of the multiline text
Improved SAMI format to better support multiple languages
Improved TX3G format to support multiple styles, colors and alpha channel
ASS/SSA subtitles are displayed without flickering
Improved image-based subtitle rendering to keep a better aspect ratio
Add support to the WebVTT subtitle format type
Improved font list setting – the actual names of the fonts are now listed
Add support to OpenType font type (OTF)
Improved calibration window, so it’s now possible to also reset the calibration settings
Subtitle settings can now be changed while in playback without side effects

Discs

Fix resume of Blu-Rays and DVD ISOs in file mode (not in library)
Fix playback of some optical discs on Linux due the incorrect mapping of mountpoints
On Linux optical media is now mounted by default (via udisks)
Partial code cleanup and platform split of disc drive handling
Skin cosmetics
Fix duplicated context menu items

EDL

Fix EDL mute sections and EDL cuts

GUI

Fix wrap lists
Fix hitrect on auto sized buttons
Fix some context menu options not triggering the respective builtin action
Independent volume setting for GUI sounds
Password reveal button in keyboard dialog

Input

Added Steam Deck built-in controller support

Skinning

Add a new Colour Picker window dialog to allow display a color list
Improved image control to support read dynamic $INFO data to “colordiffuse” tag
Improved Player Process Info window – new information has been added and grouped by context
New media flags for HDR videos: detect, store and process the type of HDR in a video file
Skinners can now define modal dialogs if its visibility depends on Boolean condition evaluation
Deprecation of old info labels with the introduction of new generic ones (e.g. Player.Editlist, Player.Cuts, etc)

Estuary/Estouchy

Estuary PVR Home Screen: New widget for timers (replacing old current/next recording widget)
Estuary PVR Home Screen: Add percentage played progress bars to Recent Channels and Recent Recordings widgets
Estuary PVR Home Screen: Change default click action to open the Guide window
Improve display of EDL markers on the default skin (EDL mutes are now shown, cut sections are also identified)

Games

Savestate manager for Retroplayer with captions describing the state of the game provided by https://retroachievements.org
In-game Port Setup dialog to change between game controllers

Platform Specifics

UNIX Family Platforms

Implement WS-Discovery (SMB discovery) for *ix platforms (Android/Linux/Apple)

iOS/TVOS

Improved Siri Remote handling
Improved “Now Playing” info

macOS

Initial support for M1 native including native windowing/input handling PR NOTE: We do not provide prebuilt M1 dmg’s. Any devs willing to work on ironing out the many corner cases of the native windowing implementation, don’t hesitate to ping @fuzzard on the forums if you have any questions.
Extend GameController support to OSX
Many code cleanups/refinements/refactors

Android

Update Android build to use Gradle for signing/aligning/packing

Linux

Add ACES/Hable Tonemapping for GLES
More BiCubic Shaders for GLES
Pipewire support

Windows

New setting to use 10 bit swapchain for SDR videos. Improves video quality and more precise colour conversions: YUV to RGB, limited to full range, shaders, etc. This is true even if video output is limited to 8 bit RGB by system or graphics driver.
Improved DXVA2 (HW video decoding) performance by sharing decoding and rendering surfaces. Avoids video copy operations and drastically reduces video memory usage on NVIDIA and AMD graphics using recent drivers.

i8n support

Harfbuzz rendering for scripts with open type font shaping features

PVR

Channels and Recordings can specify a provider
Read-only recordings supported
EPG Search: Add Saved Searches, incl. new Estuary PVR Home Screen widget
Channel Manager: Add possibility to refresh all channel logos
Settings: Add possibility to specify which data to delete when resetting PVR database
Automatic cleanup of cached PVR images (texture.db and cached image files)
Functional Improvements for multi PVR Add-on scenarios
Performance improvements, esp. for large number of channels

Build System/Dependencies

Most dependencies have been updated to latest, or close to, for Apple/Android platforms
Many cmake updates to update build system

Date/Time

Many many updates/changes to use std::chrono throughout the code base

Addons

Colour Picker
Colour button setting
Add support to add video HDR type info to a video list item
Function for removing orphaned dependencies recursively

Related

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