The Catwalk plugin allows you to browse and select your music directly from within JR Media Center. All JR Media Center's excellent music browsing, searching and music library management features are integrated with your Linn DS listening experience.
This two column view can be set up by using the "View | Split View | Show 2 Views" menu item. The right hand pane contains the "Playing Now" view (selected from the side-bar). The main pane, contains your media library - select "Audio" from the side-bar, and then "Album | View As | Album Thumbnails" from the drop-down menu in the pane title bar.
Note the search box in the top right hand corner? Typing into this will give you instant incremental search using all the meta data in your library. This includes searching the meta-data essential for classical music, such as composer, conductor, and soloists.
Media Center's "3D Music Wall", and the full-screen "Theatre View" provide graphical music browsing interfaces suitable for use with a big screen, a standard remote control, and a sofa. (Sofa optional).
These views of your library are available from the View menu.
Media Center provides many great tools for getting the most out of your media library. One of the features I use the most is the 'Smart Playlist' and the 'Custom View Rules' to show my recently purchased music.
If I don't know what to listen to, I can fire up Media Center, and look at my "Recent Rips and Downloads" smart playlist, which automatically updates every time I add something to my library. The smart playlist offers me a selection of my recent purchases, in a couple of clicks.
As you can see from the image above, last month I bought (amongst others) Bon Iver's new album and the 'Yellow House' album from Grizzly Bear on Warp. (Both are excellent albums.) I also ripped a few of my old Albums that I've not listened to for a while, (eg a friend reminded me of Sandy Denny's lovely voice so I dug out my Fotheringay album.) Finally, I recently discovered the Ethiopiques series. Volume 4 is an amazing peice, so I've been downloading tracks occationally from emusic.
The Smart playlist provides an easy way to access my new music, and it is far more reliable than trying to remember what I've bought recently, or dig through my large library when I want to listen to something different in a hurry.
The smart playlists are accessable from the Media Center side-bar. To set up a Smart Playlist, open up the Playlists menu, and right-click to create a "New Smartlist...". From here you will be presented with a dialog box.
This example shows my "Recent Rips and Downloads" smart-list.
Catwalk and JRiver Media Center can be configured to stream music from an "always on" remote wired PC. This allows you to use a wireless laptop to browse and select your music, and have the music streamed from a Library Server. Your music will continue even if your laptop is powered off.
To set up a "always on" Library Server, install JRiver Media Center on your wired PC that contains your music collection. Allow Media Center to index your music. Select "Services & Plug-ins | Library Server | Start Server".
On your wireless Laptop, install Media Center and Catwalk as usual. Next select "File | Library | Search for Library Servers" to find your music library.
Music is now controlled from Catwalk on your laptop, and streamed from your wired Library Server to your DS. Allowing you to turn off your laptop and still enjoy your music uninterrupted.
The easiest way to give Media Center ongoing access to your library is to use the Auto Import functionality. Auto import will monitor your music library for new music, and any meta-data changes.
You can keep your music on your PC or on a NAS.
To set up Auto Import, use the "Tools | Auto Import" menu item. Click the "Add Folder..." button. From here "Browse..." to your media library. You can specify a path with a mapped drive (eg "M:\My Music"), or via a network path (eg "\\My NAS\My Music"). I use the latter for accessing music I store on my NAS.
Media Center will now quietly index your library in the background. You can start the import process manually by choosing "Tools" | "Run Auto Import Now". A manual import will take some time if you have a large library, but you will only need to do it once.
Once it is finished indexing, your music will show up with Album art in the Media Center Audio Library.
With Auto Import, Music ripped or downloaded with Media Center shows up in the library instantly. Other music I've copied onto my NAS (outside of MC) shows up pretty quickly with "Auto-Import".
On the Catwalk configuration page, select a DS from the Catwalk Audio Player menu.
The Playing Now playlist now controls your music selection for the DS in the selected Zone.
The transport controls in the top left corner now control the DS music playback in the selected Zone.
By default Catwalk will attach your DS to the first JRMC "Zone", (usually named "Zone 1").
In many situations it can be useful to allocate a JRMC Zone specifically for your DS, and an additional Zone for Local playback on your PC. This will allow you to playback media on your Local PC as well as on your DS.
Each Zone has an independent playlist and playback device. Every Zone can operate independently and simultaneously if required.
You can switch between controlling each Zone by selecting the appropriate Zone that is hiding in the drop-down menu under the "Playing Now" item in the left hand pane of JRMC. (You can also use Ctrl-T to cycle through the Zones.)
To add a Zone choose Menu "Player | Playback Options | Zone Manager..." and press the "Add" button. "Zone 1" is now your DS control Zone, and "Zone 2" is the controller for playback on your Local PC. You can rename the Zones by pressing "Configure...". If you change the name of the DS Zone, you may need to tell Catwalk the new name from the Catwalk UI.
If you have a DS with inbuilt digital volume control, you can link the JR Media Center volume control to the DS volume control. From the Catwalk configuration page select Use Local Volume Control from Remote Player option. Also select Internal Volume (audio only) from the Player, Volume menu. You will now be able to change the DS volume with the JR volume slider.
The maximum volume for the DS can be set with the Volume Upper Limit slider. This provides greater resolution in the JR volume slider, and prevents accidentally pushing the volume too high for your set-up.
If your DS is not shown in the Audio Player menu, you can force Catwalk to search again by pressing the Search icon.
If you have more than one active network adapter on your computer, (eg Wireless and Wired ethernet, or USB 3G Modems) it may be necessary to select the appropriate adapter from the Active Network menu before your DS will be discovered.