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Catwalk brings the JRiver Media Center music experience to your Linn DS player.
Catwalk will change the way you search and listen to music on your DS.
Catwalk is a bridge between the world class Linn DS digital stream players, and the world class JRiver Media Centre music player and music library management application.
The Catwalk plugin allows you to browse and select your music directly from within JR Media Center. Your music selection is streamed to your Linn DS from within JR Media Center without the need for a media server. All JR Media Center's excellent music browsing, searching and music library management features are integrated with your Linn DS listening experience.
Do all this with your DS:
Windows PC or Laptop with wired or wireless ethernet network.
Catwalk works with JRiver Media Center v12, v13, and v14. Catwalk will also work with the free JRiver Media Jukebox v12.
Catwalk works with Linn DS players.
Catwalk will work on Wireless networks with a strong connection. 802.11g or better required.
Download JRiver Media Center. JR Media Center has a 30 trial period if you wish to try before you buy.
Install JRiver Media Center.
Run the Catwalk installation file
If you are using JRiver Media Center 12, or you have not installed JR in the standard directory (i.e (C:/Program Files/J River) then you will need to change the Catwalk installation path to match the JRiver install location.
That's it. Enjoy.
Catwalk requires that your PC firewall is configured to allow network communication between the DS and your PC. If you use the Windows Firewall, the appropriate settings will be applied during Catwalk installation. If you use a third party firewall, you may need to adjust your firewall configuration manually. The required settings are:
To configure Catwalk open the Services & Plug-ins menu on the left hand side of JRiver Media Center. Select the Catwalk plug-in.
If Catwalk is not shown, select the Plug-in Manager from the Tools menu. Select Catwalk from the Interface category, and press the Show button. Press the Exit button to continue.
When the Catwalk plug-in is selected, the Catwalk configuration page is displayed.
For more infomation, see Using Catwalk.
The aim of Catwalk is to join the uncompromised audio performance of Linn's DS technology with JRiver's world class media management application.
The audio path for Catwalk is as follows: Your DS requests ("pulls") audio data from Catwalk (using the HTTP v1.1 protocol), which in turn retrieves audio from your music storage.
If your music storage is on a NAS then this is retrieved with the SMB network protocol. If your music is stored on a local PC hard drive or USB drive, then it will be retrieved directly from there.
It's very simple.
Catwalk recognises links to Windows files, UNC network files, and SMB network files. When it sees them in the JRMC Playlist, it makes up a Catwalk HTTP URL and sends that to the DS instead. It then waits for the DS to request the files it has added and serves them up over HTTP 1.1 just the way the DS likes it.
Catwalk is bit-neutral. That is, Catwalk doesn't interfere with the audio bit-stream in any way.
Your music files are delivered from your storage to the DS in their entirety, unchanged. The protocols (specifically HTTP 1.1, and UPnP) are the same protocols used by Kinsky Desktop and other UPnP media servers.
Maybe. One day.
In the future, maybe I'll provide a "NAS-installable" agent to talk to Catwalk. I can't say when.
To report bugs or problems you can email us: mailbox@transmissionbegins.com, or visit our Catwalk support forum.
When reporting bugs, it is helpful for our diagnosis if you can provide the Catwalk Log file with a description of the problem you encountered.
To produce a log file select the Log To File option on the Catwalk configuration page. If possible try to reproduce the problem with the Log enabled.
The log file can be located by pressing the Talk to the Cat button, and pressing Find Log File.
The Catwalk log files are called catwalkjr-log.txt and catwalkjr-log-previous.txt.
Alternatively, the logs can be located here: (Changing the "13.0.119" to the version of Media Center you are using and "USERNAME" to your Windows user name...)
These log files are very useful for diagnosis, please send them to us at mailbox@transmissionbegins.com if you have problems.