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Kodi 20 “Nexus” Alpha 1, announced on May 16, 2022, previewed work on AV1 hardware decoding, a broad subtitle-system overhaul, and new Retroplayer game tools. It was an unstable preview—not a recommended everyday installation—and its change list should not be confused with features Kodi highlighted when Nexus reached its final release.
What was Kodi 20 “Nexus” Alpha 1?
Team Kodi announced the first Kodi 20 prerelease on May 16, 2022. It called version 20 a major release, while warning that early builds could cause problems. The team wrote that the release “will inevitably cause problems for some people” and cautioned users to expect breakage. Alpha 1 was not intended as a daily installation for anyone who could not recover a broken setup. Kodi’s Alpha 1 announcement invited users to share their experiences and report bugs.
What actually changed in Alpha 1?
The announcement covered a mix of user-visible features and development work. Its most notable previews concerned video decoding, subtitles, and gaming; other entries included PVR and add-on work, platform changes, and technical updates. Not every item would be complete or equally visible to every user in an alpha build.
AV1 hardware decoding and FFmpeg
Kodi listed hardware AV1 decoding work for Android and Linux through VAAPI, alongside an update to FFmpeg 4.4. The platform qualification matters: the announcement did not claim that the same AV1 decoding capability applied to every Kodi device or operating system.
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More subtitle styling and rendering controls
The subtitle work was among the broadest user-facing changes in the Alpha 1 notes. Kodi described expanded styling controls for borders, backgrounds, shadows, colour, opacity, and blur, as well as dynamic positioning, underline and strikethrough, more colour choices, closed-caption alignment, and metadata overrides. The announcement also included format and rendering improvements across text and image subtitles.
Retroplayer savestates and controller setup
For Retroplayer, Kodi added a savestate manager. The announcement said game-state captions were provided by RetroAchievements. It also listed an in-game port setup dialog, letting users change controller assignments while in a game.
Other listed work
The Alpha announcement also covered PVR add-on improvements, new add-on configuration capabilities, SMB discovery work for Unix-family platforms, and numerous dependency, build-system, date/time, and platform-specific changes. These were part of a development snapshot, not a promise that every change was finished or relevant to every setup.
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How Alpha 1 differed from the final Nexus release
Kodi’s final 20.0 release announcement, published January 15, 2023, highlighted several capabilities and changes in the completed release. Those should be treated as final-release context, not retroactively described as Alpha 1 novelties.
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Outbyte PC Repair FREEClear out junk files and repair common Windows errorsFree Scan →Outbyte Driver Updater FREEFix the driver behind crashes, sound loss and screen glitchesFind Drivers →| Area | Alpha 1 announcement | Final Kodi 20.0 announcement |
|---|---|---|
| Video | Hardware AV1 decoding work for Android and Linux through VAAPI; FFmpeg 4.4 update. | AV1 support on several Kodi platforms; Windows desktop HDR was also highlighted. |
| Subtitles | Broad styling, positioning, caption-alignment, metadata, format, and rendering work. | Subtitle-system rework highlighted as part of the release. |
| Gaming | Retroplayer savestate manager and in-game controller-port setup dialog. | Retroplayer savestates highlighted. |
| Other changes | PVR and add-on work, SMB discovery on Unix-family platforms, and technical changes. | Multiple instances of binary add-ons, NFSv4, and context-menu consistency were among the highlighted changes. |
The final-release post also warned that favourite add-ons might not yet support multiple instances. Team Kodi described much of the broader work as improvements to stability, performance, safety, APIs, dependencies, and database migrations. It counted “over 4,600 commits” since Kodi v19 “Matrix” was released on February 19, 2021; that figure describes the development effort since that baseline, not the Alpha 1 build alone. Read the Kodi 20.0 release announcement.
Is Alpha 1 still current?
No. Alpha 1 was a 2022 prerelease, and Nexus progressed through later releases, ending at 20.5. The official release history lists Omega 21.3, dated December 13, 2025, and Piers 22.0 as in development. For current software, check Kodi’s official release history and the current official downloads rather than installing the old Alpha 1 preview.
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