Kodi (software)

Kodi (formerly XBMC for XBox Media Center) is a free and open-source media center application developed by the Kodi Foundation, a non-profit technology consortium. Kodi is available for multiple operating systems and hardware platforms, with a 10-foot user interface designed for use with large screens and remote controls. It allows users to play and view most streaming media, such as videos, music, and podcasts from the Internet, as well as all common digital media files from local and network storage media, or TV gateway viewer. Kodi was initially designed as a multi-platform media center application that has grown to become a multi-purpose technological convergence platform. It is fully customizable: skins can change its appearance, and plug-ins expand the application with new features, such as weather forecasts and more remote control options, and can allow users to access streaming media content via online services such as Amazon Prime Video, Crackle, Pandora, Napster, Spotify, and YouTube. The later versions also have a personal video-recorder (PVR) graphical front end for receiving live television with electronic program guide (EPG) and high-definition digital video recorder (DVR) support. The software was originally created in 2002 as an independently developed homebrew media player application named Xbox Media Player for the first-generation Xbox game console, changing its name in 2003 to Xbox Media Center (abbreviated as XBMC, which was adopted as the official name in 2008) and was later made available under the name XBMC as a native application for Android, Linux, BSD, macOS, iOS/tvOS, and Microsoft Windows-based operating systems. Then the project was renamed again from XBMC to "Kodi" in July 2014 with the release of Kodi 14 (instead of the expected XBMC 14 release), while still keeping "XBMC Foundation" as the name for its legal entity that owns Kodi's code as well as directly related trademarks and logos. Because of its open source and cross-platform nature, with its core code written in C++, modified versions of Kodi together with "just enough operating systems" have been used as a software appliance suite or software framework in a variety of devices, including smart TVs, set-top boxes, digital signage, hotel television systems, network connected media players and embedded systems based on armhf platforms like Raspberry Pi. Derivative applications such as MediaPortal and Plex have been spun off from Kodi, as well as just enough operating systems like LibreELEC. Kodi has attracted negative attention from the news media and law enforcement agencies due to some add-ons as plug-ins made available by third parties for the software that facilitates unauthorized access and playback of media content by different means of copyright infringement, as well as sellers of digital media players that pre-load them with third-party add-ons for the express purpose of making piracy easy. The XBMC Foundation have expressed that they do not endorse the use of third-party add-ons that are designed for the purpose of piracy, and it takes active steps to disassociate and distance the Kodi project from third-party add-ons that violate copyright. These steps include blocking such add-ons and banning all discussions about piracy in their community forums, as well as threatening legal action against those using the Kodi trademarks or logos to promote add-ons and digital media players that come with them pre-installed with such add-ons.

Overview Kodi supports many common audio, video, and image formats, playlists, audio visualizations (FishBMC, Goom, Matrix, MilkDrop, Shadertoy), slideshows, weather forecast reporting, and third-party plugins. It is network-capable (internet and home network shares). Unlike other media center applications such as Windows Media Center, MediaPortal and MythTV, Kodi does not include its own internal digital TV-tuner code for Live TV or DVR/PVR recording functionality, as instead it acts as a unified DVR/PVR front-end with an EPG TV-Guide graphical user interface (GUI) interface which, via a common application programming interface (API), abstracts and supports multiple back-ends via PVR client add-ons from third parties, with those running either locally on the same machine or over the network. Addons, using either C/C++ programming languages to create binary add-ons or the Python scripting language to create Script Addons, expand Kodi to include features such as movie and TV show information scraping, live TV clients, weather forecast display, extra remote control options, or music visualizations. Addons can also enable streaming from services such as YouTube, Hulu, Netflix, Veoh, Pandora, and podcast streaming. Some can also provide online movie trailer support. Kodi also functions as a game launcher on any operating system. Kodi's source code is distributed as open source under the GNU General Public License (GPL-2.0-or-later), it is governed by the tax-exempt registered non-profit US organization, XBMC Foundation, and is owned and developed by a global free software community of unpaid volunteers. Even though the original XBMC project no longer develops or supports XBMC for the Xbox, XBMC on the Xbox is still available via the third-party developer spin-off project "XBMC4Xbox", which forked the Xbox version of the software and completely took over the development and support of XBMC for the old Xbox. The ending of Xbox support by the original project was also the reason that it was renamed "XBMC" from the old "Xbox Media Center" name, and why it later was renamed "Kodi". The Xbox version of XBMC had the ability to launch console games, and homebrew applications such as emulators. Since the XBMC for Xbox version was never distributed, endorsed, or supported by Microsoft, it always required a modchip or softmod exploit to run on the Xbox game-console.

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