Kodi 20 ‘Nexus’ Reaches ‘Alpha 1’ Stage (Now Available for Download)

Published on May 20, 2022
Written by:
Novak Bozovic
Novak Bozovic
Senior VPN Editor

It’s been around 2 months since we received the latest stable version of Kodi (Kodi 19.4), but that doesn’t stop Kodi's developers from working on the next major version. With that said, Kodi 20 ‘Nexus’ has just entered a very important stage of development (‘Alpha 1’), becoming available for anyone to download.

As noted on the official Kodi website, you can expect a slate of changes throughout Kodi’s code, making the application more efficient. However, major Kodi releases have always implemented a lot of new features, and that situation is no different with Kodi 20 ‘Nexus.’

You can find the complete list of new features just below, but we’d like to point out some of the highlights. So, AV1 hardware decoding finally becomes available on Android and Linux. There’s also a whole slate of changes regarding how subtitles are handled. You can change their styling, alignment, calibration, and plenty more.

Then, Kodi 20 ‘Nexus’ continues to improve support for gaming. You can switch between different controllers more easily, and there’s support for Steam Deck as well. And when it comes to brand-new technologies, Kodi 20 comes with initial support for Apple’s M1 family of chips, including native windowing and input handling.

Here’s the full list of changes you’ll find in Kodi 20 ‘Nexus:’

Video

Subtitles

Discs

EDL

GUI

Input

Skinning

Estuary/Estouchy

Games

Platform Specifics

i8n support

PVR

Build System/Dependencies

Date/Time

Addons

Since this is a very early pre-release build, expect the currently available ‘Alpha 1’ version of Kodi 20 to have its fair share of problems. With that said, Kodi’s developers recommend it only to those interested in the application’s development. In other words, you should not use this version as your main Kodi installation.

That especially applies to those with a lot of Kodi add-ons. As a reminder, we’ll say that Kodi 19.0 ‘Matrix’ broke many Kodi add-ons due to its transition to a more recent version of Python. That situation remains the same with Kodi 20 ‘Nexus,’ which doesn’t work with a lot of add-ons as it’s a pre-release build.  

If you’re willing to give it a go, visit the ‘Download’ section of Kodi’s website. Then, select your platform of choice, and make sure to pick the ‘Prerelease’ tab. Download and install Kodi 20 ‘Nexus’ from there.

Lastly, we’ll note that we’re quite far from a stable Kodi 20 ‘Nexus’ release, as it seems. Kodi’s developers have announced that they’re returning to a more traditional Alpha/Beta/Release Candidate model, so there’ll be plenty of pre-release builds until Kodi 20 becomes stable enough for everyday use.



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