With this announcement we are releasing the last beta in the Jarvis line before we are switching to Release Candidates. We hope the feedback from users regarding this beta is positive since we as team can’t test all use cases ourselves. As such we wan’t to thank all the users who helped us find the biggest blockers before we can move towards the Release Candidates.

Why the rapid succession of these releases you might wonder? By doing more releases in the shorter period we reduce the amount of changes that are included in each one. Instead of a huge list of changes it now only has several which gives a better overview. The advantage of that is possible regressions get picked up way faster and that you as user also get the benefit of not having to wait a long time to get these fixes.

This Release Early Release Often (RERO) is what we as a team have decided to go forward with as we see the benefits of this approach. Our developers don’t have to wait a very long time before their features get included in a release and you a user will also get to try them out without having to wait many months. Enough about the RERO approach as we’ll soon devote a special review about this.

This we only have a small list of fixes that made it into this last beta.

Fixes done in this beta 5:

• Improved: better remote keymap for longpress functionality

• Fixed: correctly save skin setting when changing profiles

• Fixed: prefer forced subtitle in settings was not working

• Fixed: prevent crash on scanning certain mp3 files

• Fixed: correct numeric input in some PVR windows

• Fixed: better handling of some rotated recorded video files

• Fixed: fixed non working deinterlacer for DXVA on Windows

• Fixed: certain animated GIF files wouldn’t display correctly

• Fixed: a variety of code fixes that are too technical to mention

Visit the other announcements listed below for previous beta fixes.

A lot of changes went in Kodi 16. Removing old code, splitting up parts in more logical chunks and making it all more resilient to future changes. All these changes are part of a massive change list that only makes sense to developers actually knowing what the source code does. In short we will no bother you all with summing up the list. It’s just something that is worth mentioning that not all improvements have to be actual features and are visible to users. We prefer that the program actually works than adding bells and whistles.

Improvements so far in version 16

More in depth information can be found through the following links about the 16 release.

Add-ons

General: So far in version 16 there are no add-on changes that would impact any add-ons except for PVR. Since our 12.x Frodo release there have been some gradual changes but in general all add-ons, even from that time should still work, of course there are some exceptions. If the add-ons worked in Gotham, Helix and Isengard then we are happy to say that all these add-ons should still work.

Skins: Sadly due to the amount of changes we’ll have to announce that skins will have certain parts non working. This beta will mark any version 15 skin as incompatible and will ask you to switch back to Confluence. This means that for you to continue using Kodi 16.0 you will have to switch back to Confluence or wait till the skin you use has been updated in our repository. Good new however is that a variety of skin have already start updating to latest changes.

The following skins are already updated for version 16 and will auto-update when you upgrade. We’re sure more will follow soon.

• Aeon Nox 5

• AppTV

• Black Glass Nova

• Chroma

• Confluence

• Eunique

• KOver

• Mimic

• Nebula

• Rapier

• re-Touched

• Titan

• Transparency!

Conclusion

Should you want to download and install this build please visit our download page.

Please report any problems on our forum http://forum.kodi.tv and not on the release announcement.

Donations or getting involved

Getting involved is quite easy. Simply take the plunge and start using these 16.0 Jarvis builds. If you use these builds, we encourage you to report problems with these builds on our forum first and after that, if asked, submit bugs on Trac (following this guide: How to submit a bug report). Do note that we need detailed information so we can investigate the issue. We also appreciate providing support in our Forums where you can. You can of course also follow or help promote Kodi on all available social networks. Read more on the get involved page.

We are always happy to receive a donation by which you show your support and appreciation. All donations go towards the XBMC foundation and are typically used for travel to attend conferences, any necessary paperwork and legal fees, purchase necessary hardware and licenses for developers and hopefully the yearly XBMC Foundation Developers Conference.