The new Kodi 22 Piers Beta1 has been announced. The build for this beta version will be available soon; it may still be unstable, so we recommend using it for testing purposes only.
As we can see if we install the Kodi v22 Piers version, the aesthetic changes are few and it seems a fairly continuous version in general. In any case, soon we will have versions available for Windows in 32 and 64bit compilations in addition to the compilations for Android in ARM V7A format of greater compatibility and ARM V8A for Shield TV or similar. In the following months this version will evolve, and we will inform you about its new features.
Download Kodi 22 Piers Beta1
For now, only the source code for this version is available, but we’ll soon have the compiled APK and EXE files for this app available for download. We’ll update this article when the binaries are released.
Kodi 22 Piers Beta1 changelog
Video
- Upgraded to FFmpeg 8.1.2
- Added live bitrate infolabels
- Improved accuracy for chapter changes
- Improved handling of chapters read by FFmpeg
- Improved tempo settings
- Integrated bookmarks into forward/backward skip
- Fixed seeking during 1.6x tempo
- Fixed AV1 playback with keyframe-filtering=2
- Fixed broken OSD for DVDs after Alpha 3
Audio
- Fixed possible crash during DTS-HD audio playback
- Fixed audio delay for live TV with AC3/EAC3 passthrough
Subtitles
- Subtitle visibility improvements
- Subtitle timing improvements
- Fixed handling of ASS/SSA script headers
- Shows the codec of the current subtitle of the playing video
Library
- Added “Media Details” dialog
- Added audio language to media item badges
- Added additional HDR formats to the UI
- Fixed duplicate taglines in the library view
- Fixed various stream detail issues
- Improved Bluray handling for .nfo files
- Improved Bluray playcount handling
- Improved stacking for movie/folder path names with roman numerals
- Fixed handling of more complex episode ranges
- Improved Movie Version scanning behavior
- Improved media badges
Music
- Fixed several issues for CUE sheets
- Fixed several audiobook issues
- Fixed rescanning music items
PVR
- Improved daily wake-up timer
Games
- Added new Disc Manager
- Fixed possible crash when changing resolution
- Fixed M3U handling for multi-disc games
- Fixed transparency when choosing video filters
- Added ability for Amiga controllers to autoconnect
- Added “Select” button for Amiga controllers
Network
- Fixed NFSv4 file creation with atomic O_EXCL flag
- Fixed possible crash when a JSON-RPC TCP client disconnects
- Fixed parsing NFS URL options
- Fixed reading DVD folders on NFS
- Fixed SMB session exhaustion (Windows desktop is limited to 20 connections)
- Extended the JSON-RPC method
Textures.GetTexturesto report texture status - Fixed potential XSS and open redirects in the web UI
Databases
- Fixed incompatibility with MySQL 9.6 and above
- Fixed incompatibility with MariaDB 10.x remote databases
- Fixed possible crash when MySQL server is temporarily unavailable
Inputstream add-ons
- Added HDR, color metadata, 10-bit and 12-bit to Inputstream add-ons
- Fixed non-encrypted streams in Inputstream add-ons
Peripherals
- Improved CEC handling (product of DevCon 2026 outside Barcelona)
- Fixed crash when rapidly hotplugging Linux joysticks
Python
- Upgraded to Python 3.14.6
Profiles
- Fixed possible crash switching to a profile that has never been used before
- Fixed migrations across different profiles
Skinning
- Blocked clicks on disabled buttons
- Small tweaks to default Estuary skin
- Fixed nested label formatting
- Fixed scrolling text speed scaling with display resolution
- Fixes for skin reloading for skin developers
- Improved HDR profile support
- Added skin setting for showing original/localised movie titles
Python
- Fixed addVideoStream(), addAudioStream() and addSubtileStream()
Platforms
Android
- Fixed crash when using voice recognition
- Fixed general app failures due to JNI exception
- Fixed crash when starting Zeroconf browser
- Fixed error when running “Library > Clean library” in settings
Linux (general)
- Increased support for remote keys
Embedded Linux (DRM, GBM, and GLES)
- Substantial rewrite of Linux rendering
- Brings GLES to feature parity with GL
- Added full HDR end-to-end support (decode, colorimetry, tonemapped GUI, and 10-bit output)
- Added 12-bit decoding support
- Added dithering and HQ scalers for GLES
- Added “auto” dithering mode (GLES-only)
- Added YUV 4:2:2 and 4:4:4 support
- Added VAAPI hardware decoding of HEVC 4:2:2 and 4:4:4 (GLES-only)
- Improved video performance
- Improved GUI appearance in HDR mode
- Expanded hardware support, especially for ARM devices
- Fixed BT.2020 colorimetry signalling for DP-HDMI dongles
- Fixed numerous “limited-range” video black-level issues
webOS
- Fixed screensaver enabling during playback on webOS 4
- Fixed playback on webOS 26
- Fixed forced aspect ratio playback
tvOS
- Improved Siri Remote playback controls
Developers
- Fixed build failure with Visual Studio 2026 18.6.0 (May 2026 Update)
- Change minimum required FFmpeg version from 8.1.0 to 8.1.1
- Warning for case-sensitive filesystem users: a filename was corrected, and may cause git errors
Known issues
- On some GBM/GLES platforms, fullscreen video may show stale or flickering overlay graphics