Kodi 18 to launch with 64-bit version for Windows
The developers of the free media player software Kodi announced that the upcoming Kodi 18 will ship as a 64-bit version for Windows.
Kodi, which originated as a project to bring a better media player to Microsoft's first Xbox console, is a popular cross-platform media player thanks to its customization options and support for multimedia formats and services.
While it can be used to add and play local media files, support for streaming audio and video, as well as TV is also provided. You can check out our review of Kodi 17 for additional information.
The current version of Kodi is offered only as a 32-bit application for Windows. Kodi for Mac and Linux systems however is offered as a 64-bit application.
The blog post confirms that Windows users have asked about a 64-bit version of Kodi since 2012, and addresses the question why it took "so long" to release one.
One part of the answer suggests that releasing a 64-bit version that early would not have provided "any benefits for the Kodi application", and that the rise of "all new video formats" has changed that in recent years only.
Probably the biggest hindrance to producing a dedicated 64-bit version of Kodi for Windows was that the Windows version differed from Linux and Mac versions.
While Kodi's developer could get external libraries to compile as 64-bit editions easily on Linux and Mac devices for the most part, the same could not be said for the Windows version. The core difference was that external library teams were responsible for creating 64-bit versions of libraries, and if they did not, there was little that Kodi could do about that.
During past years several of our team tried to improve this situation and started to work getting those libraries updated to be 64-bit compilable and compilable. This is a huge undertaking as some were simple never intended to be anything else than 32-bit. Slowly but steadily the work progressed and after currently having ported 31 !!! external libraries to 64-bit we are finally in a state that Kodi is usable and near feature complete.
Kodi 64-bit for Windows is already available as a development version. Users who are interested in giving it a try right away can download the latest build by visiting the official Kodi download page, clicking on Windows, and on the next page on Development Builds. There they find listed the 64-bit version of Kodi for the operating system.
Note that it may still lack some functionality that the stable version provides currently.
Users who wait for the next stable version of Kodi can install the 64-bit version over the 32-bit version without issues according to the blog.
To start using this Windows 64-bit version is nothing more than downloading the 64-bit installer and install it on top of your current Kodi version.
If you want to know more about the advantages of 64-bit applications over 32-bit ones, check out this comparison of the 32-bit and 64-bit version of Windows 7.
Why not make use of the mplayer.conf?
Huh, I have never even seen this “font cache” pane; videos play at once for me, using VLC & XP SP3.
Mike, in theory this should have only been displayed once to you, at the very first video that you played with VLC. The time this window is displayed depends largely on the number of fonts in your font directory.
huh, I lucked out for a change?? Amazing!!
Apparently VLC keeps this info through version updates, but I didn’t see this message after a fresh OS install about 8 weeks ago, & a new VLC.
yes, yes, i have the same problem. sometimes, VLC crashes when it is playing .mov file.
Error:
Buidling font Cache pop-up
Solution:
Open VLC player.
On Menu Bar:
Tools
Preferences
(at bottom – left side)
Show settings — ALL
Open: Video
Click: Subtitles/OSD (This is now highlited, not opened)
Text rendering module – change this to “Dummy font renderer function”
Save
Exit
Re-open – done.
Progam will no longer look outside self for fonts
Source – WorthyTricks.co.cc
Great tip, thanks a lot Kishore.
@Kishore, I’ll try your tips, but does this mean it will no longer show subtitles either?
I do use subtitles, but the fontcache dialog box pops up (almost) everytime I play a file.
Could this be related to the fonts I have installed? Or if I add/remove fonts to my system?
I’ll try to do a fresh install also, if your tips does no work. I’ll post back here later…
/thanks
/j
@ Javier, The trick i posted will show up subtitles too. If not,
@ Javier, The trick i posted will show up subtitles too. If not,Dont worry, VLC is currently sorting out this issue and the next version will be out soon.
No probs @ Martin !! Its my pleasure
Try running LC with administrator privileges. That seemed to fix it for me
I am using SMplayer 0.8.6 (64-bit) (Portable Edition) on Windows 7 x64. Even with the -nofontconfig parameter in place SMplayer still scans the fonts. Also, I have enabled normal subtitles and it is still scanning fonts before playing a video. Also, it does this every time the player opens a video after a system restart (only the fist video played).
Does that mean that only instrumental versions of songs will be available for non-paying users?