Addons Framework, API, and Manager
Added ability for all addons to provide their own web interface (and handling of multiple web interfaces)
Added support for addons to save their setting values to their own settings.xml file before quitting
Added support for multi-file selections in the (python) file browser dialog
Extended Addons API to support adding extension points for Service Addons (xbmc.service)
Added support for Addon Rollbacks, enabling users to choose previously installed addons over more recent revisions
Added the ability to search Addons in the Addons-Manager
GUI Engine
Improve XBMC's GUI Engine / Skinning Framework making it even more flexible and powerful
Added option for auto login of a specific selected user profile (good for kiosk mode)
Added commands for xbmc.Player().getAvailableAudioStreams() and xbmc.Player().setAudioStream()
Added support to identify DTS-HD (DTS-HD MA and DTS-HD HRA) profiles in audio stream list
Add ability for skinners to show buffering progress for streamed/cached files (similar to YouTube)
Improved mouse support, add better control for dragging of seek / slide / scroll bars, and click handling
Improve touch interface API and gesture support for XBMC's GUI Engine for all platforms
Added Dirty Region support to reduce CPU usage
Added a custom JPEG decoder, at least 2x faster than the previous implementation (cximage)
Playback:
Added UDF 2.5 filesystem reading support to XBMC's VFS (Virtual File System)
Added support for direct playback of ISO image files for Blu-ray Disc as well as video library integration
Added an option for vertical shift of video image with slider setting
Added support for color and font styles tag in MPL2 (MicroDVD) subtitles
Added support for SSA/ASS subtitle tags; italics, bold, and color for SubRip (.srt) subtitles
Added support for MP4 embedded subtitles
Added support delay tag in vobsub subtitles
Added support for a new extended version of MPlayer's EDL (Edit Decision List) format
Added PlayerControl built in function to allow jumping to a percentage offset from a key mapping
Added support for Slingbox
Upgrade FFmpeg (libavformat and libavcodec) audio/video codec and demux library
Improved Blu-ray Disc and harddrive playback support of unencrypted bdmv and mpls files without menus
Removed subtitle caching (as it was only needed on Xbox because of the severe memory restrictions)
Removed all dependencies of libmms libraries from XBMC's code in favour of FFmpeg native MMS support
Remove all dependencies of liba52, libdts, and faac libraries from XBMC's code in favour of FFmpeg native
Added support for NFS virtual file server (vfs) (all platforms)
Added support for AFP (vfs) (all platforms aside from Windows)
Added Airplay support for Videos/Pictures (all platforms)
Added Airplay support for Music (all platforms aside from Windows)
Improved UPnP Renderer
Added a slider for volume amplification and dynamic range compression during video playback
Added an option to pause video playback during refreshrate changes
Extended PathSubstitution from playlists to all files for users of shared MySQL Databases
Added the ability to adjust the display's refresh rate to match the video's frame rate in OSX (Feature already available in Windows and Linux)
Improvements made to the adjust refresh rate feature to pick the "best" rate, rather than the closest multiple
Added DXVA Deinterlacing support
Library:
Combined Files and Library mode for videos
Add asynchronous threaded background loading of metadata to XBMC's VFS (Virtual File System)
Added support for cleaning the music library via CleanLibrary(music) command
Added a "Play from here" context menu button for TV Shows Episodes in the video library
Added the option to specify the default select (Play, Resume, Show information, Choose) action on videos
Changed "Set Content" to "Edit Content Settings" after being set
Added disc stub support for cataloging DVDs, BluRays, etc.
Scrapers:
Improve TheMovieDB.org movie scraper by adding themoviedb.org posters scraping
Improve TheTVDB.com (Multi-Lingual) TV Shows and Episode scraper
Improve Freebase (English) music scraper
Skins:
Confluence: Home screen switched to horizontal layout
Confluence: Greatly simplified the way FanArt works throughout the skin and the settings for it
Confluence: Added ability for users to easily add / remove Add-ons as items on the home screen menu
Confluence: Added codec flagging images for DTS-HD Master Audio and DTS-HD High Resolution Audio
Other:
Added ability to handle and allow access to multiple web interfaces at once
Added option setting to play videos within picture slideshows
Added dimming setting to the built-in picture slideshow screensaver
Added support for sorting depending on current locale
Added advancedsettings.xml option to disable the display of startup splash image (enabled by default)
Added support for batch requests to the JSON-RPC API
Added support for requests by notification to the JSON-RPC API
Make JSON-RPC API compliant with JSON-RPC 2.0 specification ( details)
Cleanup and improve JSON-RPC API
Added advancedsettings.xml option to configure the TCP port used by JSON-RPC (default is 9090)
Improve the features of the default web interface
Removed Weather from XBMC core and switched to Weather Underground as the default weather provider addon
Linux Specific:
Add support for Texas Instruments OMAP4 (OMAP4430 and OMAP4440 with video decoding on IVA 3)
Added dynamic runtime detection of CPU features (MMX, SSE, 3DNow, etc.) implementation for Linux
Added proper timezone support for systems based on Slackware Linux
Added altname (alternative name) support to LIRC mapping for linux-input-layer devices
Added lircmap for Conexant's CX23885 IR (infrared) recievers
Added lircmap to switch between subtitles with iMON Pad remote control
Improved ARM processor architecture support for embedded devices and embedded system platforms
Improved OpenGL ES and EGL support for embedded devices and embedded system platforms
Improved OpenMAX Video Decoding Acceleration support
Provide JSON-RPC server over Bluetooth
iOS Specific:
Ported XBMC to iOS 4.x (adding "XBMC for iOS" to XBMC's existing list of supported operating-systems)
Added support for Apple A4 (ARM) iDevices, inc. Apple TV 2G, iPhone 4, iPod Touch 4G, and the iPad
Added hardware accelerated video decoding support for H.264 decode on iOS via Apple's VideoToolBox API
Added support for OpenGL ES hardware accelerated rendering of XBMC's graphical user interface on iOS
Added initial iOS Touch / Gesture / Inertial Scrolling support for XBMC interface on iPhone 4, iPod Touch 4G, and the iPad
Added a APT repository for Apple TV, and Cydia with packages for iPhone 4, iPod Touch 4G, and iPad
Mac OS X Specific:
Added dynamic runtime detection of CPU features (MMX, SSE, 3DNow, etc.) implementation for Mac OS X
Improve Apple VDADecoder Video Acceleration support (requires Snow Leopard and NVIDIA 9400 or later)
Improve XBMC's build system to make compiling XBMC much easier
Windows Specific:
Added support for NV12, UVYV, UYVY, and YUV2 rendering (software and ps)
Added dynamic runtime detection of CPU features (MMX, SSE, 3DNow, etc.) implementation for Windows
Added DXVA video rendering option
Improve XBMC's build system to make compiling XBMC much easier
