Kodi v19.0 Matrix: Features and Compatible Add-ons

The open-source media player software Kodi has been released in a new, stable version called Kodi 19 ‘Matrix’. New is the support for the av1 codec, hdr, and tvOS.

Adam
8 min readMar 1, 2021

Kodi 19.0 “ Matrix “ has just been put online for everyone. There are many changes (improvements, bug fixes) and new features have appeared: interface, playback, subtitles, add-ons & scraper, PVR, live TV… and iOS shutdown in 32-bit version.

Kodi 19 Matrix: What’s new?

The big platform change with this release is the new support for tvOS. This means goodbye to iOS 32-bit. In addition, there are specific tweaks such as specific TopShelf support and fixes on AppleTV, better logging and notch support on iOS, and a shift to a single Linux binary file for multiple window systems (X11, Wayland, and GBM).

In Kodi 19, software support for decoding av1 videos has been added from now on. It is possible to adjust the opacity of subtitles. New is a dark gray color for subtitles. For add-ons, Kodi switches from Python 2 to Python 3. Existing add-ons will need to be upgraded because of this and may not work until then. Kodi 19 replaces the old XML metadata scrapers with the new standard Python for movies and TV shows; there are also new Python scrapers for music, Generic Album Scraper, and Generic Artist Scraper. Binary add-ons generally get improvements in system documentation, tidy settings dialogs, and better help text.

In Windows and Android versions, hdr10 support has been added for all types of media, and dynamic Dolby Video on the Android version. However, the hardware on which the software runs must also support this. The iOS version of Kodi 19 now supports game controllers, something that has already been supported for Windows and Android.

For audio and music enthusiasts, there are significant improvements in metadata handling across the board: library improvements, new tags, new renderings, improvements in how Kodi handles release dates, album duration, multi-disc sets, and more. There’s a new Matrix-inspired visualization, improvements to show when fetching files from a web server, and several changes to how audio decoder add-ons can pass information to the Kodi player. Those who have libraries of music videos also get some extras: improved database and metadata display means that Kodi will now pull and display related album and artist information from the music library where applicable. There are also new video grouping features.

Skin / Look-and-Feel

  • Screen redesign, especially for music with new metadata displays and changes to playlist views
  • New “now playing” view
  • Artwork and image file improvements

Video Playback

  • AV1 software decoding
  • Windows 10 — HLG HDR and static HDR10 playback
  • Android — Static HDR10 and dynamic Dolby Vision HDR
  • More OpenGL bicubic scalers
  • Metadata and visualization improvement for music videos with the display of artist and album information

Audio Playback

  • Metadata handling Improvements with library improvements, new tags, new displays, improvements to how Kodi handles release dates, album durations, multi-disc sets, and more.
  • New, Matrix-inspired, visualization
  • Improvements to display when fetching files from a web server
  • Several changes to how audio decoder addons can pass information through to the Kodi player.

Subtitles

  • Fix for timestamp overlays
  • Dark gray color and opacity settings for the captions, which the developers say is especially important for HDR content.

Games

  • Adding Integer scaling to improve the viewing quality of Pixel Art games
  • iOS — Support for Xbox, PlayStation, and other supported Bluetooth game controllers

Addons and Scrapers

  • Python 2.7 is not supported anymore, so everything has been ported to Python 3
  • Kodi 19 also replaces the old XML metadata scrapers with new default Python for movies and TV shows
  • New Python scrapers are also available for music, Generic Album Scraper, and Generic Artist Scraper.
  • Improvement to binary addons

PVR and Live Television

Added PVR reminders, home screen widgets, group/channel manager enhancements, navigation, and dialog controls, context menus, New / Live / Finale / Premiere tags, channel numbering, and sorting, as well as performance and API improvements.

Security

  • Enforcement of the origin of installed addons and dependencies to prevents third-party repositories from overwriting code of unrelated add-ons
  • Broken or deprecated add-ons are now highlighted in the add-on list
  • The binary addon system now has higher security around data exchange between Kodi and an addons
  • Kodi’s interface is password-protected by default

Platform-specific changes to Kodi 19

  • Added support for tvOS, and removal of iOS 32-bit
  • AppleTV — TopShelf support and fixes
  • iOS — Better logging and notch support
  • Linux — Single Linux binary for X11, Wayland, and GBM windowing systems

Plenty of under-the-hood API changes

According to the Kodi team, more than 5,500 files have been modified, and about 600,000 lines of code added, modified, or deleted. However, when you launch this new version, the changes are not obvious. Indeed, a large part of the improvements are not visible and are under the hood.

Kodi v19.0 Matrix compatible add-ons

The main feature of Kodi v19.0 Matrix is that add-ons must now be designed with Python 3. This means that all Python 2-based add-ons are not compatible and cannot run on the Matrix.

At the time of writing these lines, most of the top Kodi add-ons do not seem to have completed the necessary changes required with Python 3. This means when you update Kodi to the latest version 19.0 Matrix incompatible add-ons are automatically disabled. Only compatible ones will migrate to the new version of the media center

Therefore, if we are already using all the top add-ons like The Crew, Magic Dragon, Rising Tides, Exodus, Gaia….. it is important to stay on Kodi v18.9 until later.

However, a number of add-ons are already prepared to run on the new Kodi version with Python 3. We provide you here with a list of add-ons that are compatible with Kodi v19.0 Matrix. They have been tested and seem to work flawlessly. We will keep updating this list

This list contains also a number of Kodi 19 Builds if you are a fan of ready-made build for Kodi 19 Matrix

Kodi 19 add-ons for Movies and TV Shows

The Oath Kodi add-on

Revolution add-on

Seren Kodi add-on [Debrid only]

Nemesis AIO add-on

EntertainMe Kodi add-on

Elementum Kodi add-on

  • Name: Elementum add-on
  • Source: Official website
  • Compatibility: Kodi 18.9 Leia and 19.0 Matrix
  • Installation guide

ALVIN add-on

Free addon [ Free One Click]

Seal Team 6 [Free + Debrid support]

Navyseal Big Brother addon [Debrid]

Shadow add-on [Debrid only]

DejaVu Again addon [Debrid +1 Click free]

Aliunde Plus addon [Debrid+Free]

Black Lightning addon [Debrid + 1 Click free]

Rogue One addon [Debird+ 1-Click free]

  • Name: Rogue One — Narcacist Wizard Repository
  • Source:http://www.narcacist.com/repo/
  • Compatibility: Kodi 19.0 Matrix
  • Installation guide

Fen addon [Debrid only]

Venom addon [Debrid only]

4k addon

The Boys addon [Debrid + 1 Click Free]

One Play Kodi add-on [Portuguese]

PlayCine Kodi add-on [Portuguese]

kodi 19 add-ons for live sports events & replays

SportHD add-on

Sportowa TV addon

Cloud 9 addon

Fight Club add-on

Kodi 19 add-ons for adult content

Cumination add-on

VideoDevil addon

FapZone Kodi add-on

XXX-O-DUS Kodi add-on

Kodi 19 addons for Live TV Channels

tvOne addon

Kodi 19 add-ons Anime content

FANime add-on

Kodi 19 Matrix Maintenance Tools

Aliunde Maintenance Wizard

EZ Maintenance

Rock Cleaner + Rock Cleaner Classic

Kodi 19 Matrix compatible builds

Should I update to Kodi v19.0 Matrix?

The main feature of Kodi v19 is that add-ons must now be designed with Python 3. This means that all Python 2-based add-ons are not compatible and cannot run on the Matrix.

At the time of writing this guide, most of the top add-ons do not seem to have completed the necessary changes required with Python 3.

Therefore, if you are already using all these top movies, TV Shows, Sports, or adult add-ons, it is important to stay on Kodi v18.9 until later.

As usual with such changes that affect add-ons from external developers, not all extensions have yet been changed. Thus before updating to Kodi 19.0, users should check whether the add-ons they are using have already been converted.

If you want to make your personal touch and customize Kodi 19 Matrix to suit your needs, it is absolutely possible for you to create a lightweight build where you can embed only the add-ons you want without losing any of the work you have done before. It takes only a few simple steps. This guide will explain it all for you.

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