XBMC Media Center 10.0

What's new in this version:

Addons Manager
- Added unified Addon framework that make it easy to distribute addons to XBMC (based on C-Pluff)
- Addon Browser GUI that will allow for an easy way to find, install, and manage third-party addons
- Added support for update notifications and options for manual or automatic updates of addons
- Added Team XBMC's official Addons Repository for open source addons as the default Addon Repo
- Added GUI option to install additional third-party Addons Repos from ZIP files (with addon.xml)
- Added GUI option to install third-party addons from ZIP files without it being in an Addon Repo
- Added support for scrapers (Web Scraper Metadata Aggregators) to the Addons API
- Added support for skins extension point to the Addons API
- Added support for visualizations extension point to the Addons API
- Added support for screensavers extension point to the Addons API
- Added support for python based plugins extension point to the Addons API
- Added support for python based scripts extension point to the Addons API
- Added support for web interfaces extension point to the Addons API
- Added new default web interface as an addon to remote control XBMC via any web browser
- Removed builtin SHOUTcast.com directory support and moved it to the official addons repo
- Removed builtin visualizations and moved them to the official addons repo
- Removed builtin screensavers and moved them to the official addons repo
- Removed all Adult ('XXX' classified) scrapers into a new third-party managed addons repository

GUI Engine:
- Improved XBMC's GUI Engine / Skinning Framework making it even more flexible and powerful
- Added option to choose "default select action" of the showing info screen for videos
- Added FanArt support for Addons
- Added initial gesture support to XBMC's GUI Engine (adding touch interface API support to libgui)
- Added initial support for Windows Touch API (Windows 7 touch features and functions)
- Added ability for Karaoke player to optionally show the next song that will be played
- Added video information flagging for trailers
- Improved mouse support, added better exclusive control support for dragging of sliders/scroll bars
- Improved mouse click handling and added the possibility of long verses short clicks detection
- Updated translations for most languages (thanks to all community members who contributed!)
- Renamed "Plugins" in the Addons UI to "Media Sources" as that is what they are now
- Removed AAC, MP1, MP2, and MP3 passthrough options settings from the GUI
- Removed all Xbox only strings from the language files since the Xbox platform is no longer supported

Playback:
- Added Broadcom Crystal HD PCIe/Mini-PCIe hardware accelerated video decoders support
- Added native support for unencrypted Blu-ray Disc playback without menus (via libbluray)
- Added Blu-ray Disc detection for external players (map external player in playercorefactory.xml)
- Added support for using libbluray to play bdmv files (index.bdmv or -.mpls) from local folders
- Added raw bitstream pass-through support for MP1, MP2, MP3, and AAC encoded audio tracks
- Added real-time ATSC A/52 encoder for on-the-fly Dolby Digital 5.1 (AC-3) transcoded output
- Added support for 5.1 Multi-Channel Analog Output (discrete 6-channel PCM output)
- Added post-processing support and options for videos in standard definition resolutions
- Added High-Quality Lanczos Upscalers (Video Resamplers) as OpenGL GLSL Shaders
- Added support for embedded Blu-ray/AVCHD PGS subtitles in MKV (Matroska) video containers
- Added support to use MKV (Matroska) embedded descriptions for audio and subtitle tracks
- Added support for DEFAULT/FORCED Matroska flags for subtitles
- Added support for color text subtitles in MKV files
- Added support for unsorted subtitles (ass/ssa, srt, smi)
- Added support for multiple language SAMI subtitle
- Added initial WebDAV (HTTP) media source support to XBMC's VFS (Virtual File System)
- Added initial SFTP media source support to XBMC's VFS (Virtual File System)
- Added support for WebM via libvpx
- Added Zapstream support for Tuxbox (Dreambox/DBox2) client
- Added RTMPE/RTMPTE and improved RTMP/RTMPT/RTMPS support via librtmp from RTMPDump
- Added "Wide Zoom" video mode option, a combination zoom, cropping, and non-linear stretching
- Added "Stretch 14x9" video mode option, a combination of zoom, cropping, and linear stretching
- Added "Stretch 16x9" video mode option, a combination of zoom, cropping, and linear stretching
- Added support to extract lyrics from Lyrics3v2 (Lyrics3 2.00) ID3 tags when available in music files
- Added support to configured cache buffer size via advancedsettings.xml (rather than hardcoded)
- Upgraded FFmpeg that significantly improves the decoding of all widespread mainstream codecs
- Improved generalization of chapter support and SeekTime from the input stream interface
- Improved Dream Multimedia Dreambox Enigma2 bouquets support in the TuxBox Client
- Improved audio channel matrix mapping, audio channels downmixing, and upmixing support
- Improved DVD-Video navigation in using Next and Prev
- Improved timecode-based seeking in videos

Library:
- Added FanArt image cache height-value size option to advancedsettings.xml (defaults to 480)
- Added initial support for MySQL as abstracted database backend for video and music libraries
- Added improved portability of SQL statements used in the video and music libraries
- Added ability to sort TV Shows folders by the date of the last recorded episode
- Added support for Movie Sets (option to group movie collections into sets for customized sorting)
- Added support to allow scrapers to use a normal settings.xml
- Improved performance for SQL database queries ( expert help is always wanted in this area!)
- Improved video scanner engine
- Improved metadata scraper engine

Scrapers:
- Added hd-trailers.net movie trailers scraping to TheMovieDB.org and IMDb scrapers
- Added new Rotten Tomatoes (English) movie scraper
- Added new Freebase (English) music scraper
- Added new 1ting (Chinese) music scraper
- Added new 7176 (Chinese) movie scraper
- Added new getlib (Chinese) movie scraper
- Added new m1905 (Chinese) movie scraper
- Added new daum (Korean) TV Shows scraper
- Added new daum (Korean) music scraper
- Added new filmbasen (Norwegian) movie scraper
- Added new moviemeter (Dutch) movie scraper
- Added new videobuster (German) movie scraper
- Added new kino (German) movie scraper
- Improved ofdb (German) movie scraper by adding themoviedb.org posters scraping
- Improved TheTVDB (Multi-Lingual) TV Shows and Episode scraper
- Removed Discogs (English) music scraper due to them blocking XBMC
- Removed imdb-cn (Chinese) movie scraper due to website closed

Skins:
- Confluence: Addon Browser specific window and icon to get to it in the settings GUI
- Confluence: Added border to the Addon icons in media info view for a uniformed look
- Confluence: Added FanArt support for the Addon Browser
- Confluence: Added buttons in the OSD's for Lyrics and Subtitle Addons
- Confluence: Added browsing for subtitles in full screen video overlay
- Confluence: Added browsing for lyrics in full screen video overlay
- Confluence: Added "Recently Added" Movies and TV Shows script view in the home menu
- Confluence: Improved file and folder path name reading for media flagging
- Confluence: Removed script window completely (turns out you don't need one now)

Other:
- Added JSON-RPC and JSON API over HTTP and Sockets for bidirectional communication
- Added microhttpd Web Server (and removed the old GoAhead and Spyce code) for HTTP API
- Added HTTP authentication methods any, anysafe, digest, and ntlm (via cURL libcurl)
- Added SSH file transfer protocol (sftp) via libssh
- Added support for MD5 passwords in GUIEditControl
- Added function / setting to enable DXTn texture compression (DDS) to all cached non-skin images
- Added doxygen resources for generating source code documentation
- Added ability to turn off LCD/VFD backlight while screensaving to advancedsettings.xml
- Added builtin command for sending Wake-On-Lan (WOL) magic packets
- Added builtin command irsend infra-red send commands using LIRC for IR blaster (lirc.send)
- Added joystick deadzone and calibration support to advanced settings ( advancedsettings.xml)
- Added power abstraction framework with a way to send OnWake and OnSuspend events
- Improved XBMC's integrated DLNA / UPnP MediaServer and Client compatibility
- Improved last.fm and libre.fm passwords storage with MD5, requires user to input password again

Live Specific:
- Optimized XBMC Live for the first and next-generation NVIDIA ION / ION 2 (as reference platforms)
- Added Bootable Disk Wizard (BDW) addon to the Live CD that makes bootable flash disk easier for users
- Added Plymouth Theme with XBMC logo typeface to replace the old USplash Splash Screen on Boot
- Added support for GRUB 2 based images
- Improved support for Wake-on-USB from ACPI S3 Standby with Remote/Keyboard/Mouse
- Updated XBMC Live to to based on a stripped Ubuntu Desktop 10.04 (Lucid Lynx) Linux Distribution
- Updated NVIDIA and ATI proprietary binary graphics device drivers (restricted drivers)

Windows Specific:
- Added support for most MCE (Microsoft Windows Media Center) compatible remotes out-of-the-box
- Added Broadcom Crystal HD PCIe/Mini-PCIe Hardware Accelerated Video Decoder Support
- Added initial native DXVA 2 support for H.264, VC-1, and WMV9 (Windows Vista and 7 only)
- Added support for WASAPI (Windows Audio Session API) for raw bitstream output
- Added High-Quality Bicubic and Lanczos Upscalers (Video Resamplers) as Direct3D HLSL
- Added Direct3D port of the OpenGL Spectrum 3D Audio Visualization for DirectX
- Added support for Visual Studio 2010 Express edition and Visual Studio 2009 non-Express edition
- Improved support for Microsoft's DirectX, Direct3D, and DirectSound APIs for Windows

Apple TV Specific:
- Added Broadcom Crystal HD PCIe/Mini-PCIe Hardware Accelerated Video Decoder Support
- Added support for Apple TV OS 3.0.2