Kodi 22 beta is here. This is what's new in "Piers"
Kodi 22, nicknamed "Piers," is adding multi-disc game management, more HDR support, improved video navigation, and more.
The developers of Kodi, the popular open source media center, announced their first release of Kodi 22 for beta testing. Kodi 22 is nicknamed "Piers" and adds new functionality for multiple media types.
What's new
- Multi-disc games: A new Disc Manager system for games has been implemented, allowing games that use multiple discs (Metal Gear Solid for PSX being an example) to be played seamlessly.
- Live bitrate infolabels: Now when you're watching videos, you can see a live-updated information about the bitrate, which can be helpful for troubleshooting stream issues.
- TV show taglines: As appeared in the last alpha version of Piers, Kodi can now show TV series taglines.
- HDR on LibreELEC: If you're running Kodi via a LibreELEC installation, you can now enjoy "end-to-end" HDR support on your HDR screens. That means HDR decode, colorimetry, a tonemapped GUI, and a 10-bit output all work together like they should to deliver a better visual experience.
What's getting better
- Video navigation: Now video bookmarks are accounted for in forward and backward skips. Chapters are handled better, and a glitch with skipping at the 1.6x tempo was addressed.
- Subtitles: Piers brings H264 AVCC subtitle support, and subtitle timing and rendering has been generally improved.
- Amiga controller support: Amiga controllers can now connect automatically, and the "Start" button now works properly.
- Network connectivity: Some issues with processing NFS URLs and with SMB sessions have been addressed.
Jordan Gloor
Zooming out
Why this update matters: In a world where owning the media we consume is increasingly rare, Kodi's continued development fights back.
My take: I watch and listen to most of my media through a Jellyfin server whose NFS connection is constantly having issues. I won't switch to Kodi, but I do feel a bit of pain seeing its NFS handling is getting better.
Diving in
The fineprint: You can read the Kodi 22 beta 1 release notes to learn more about what's coming.
Get it now: If you want to try the Kodi 22 beta, you can head to the Kodi download page, select your platform, and switch to the "Prerelease" tab. You'll find the first beta for Piers there.
