Steinberg Nuendo 4 Networking Manual

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Networking
Transfer Status
Transfer of network data always is performed in the back-
ground. If you want to check on the progress of you trans-
fer processes, you can open the Transfer Status window 
by pulling down the Network menu and selecting “Trans-
fer Status…”.
As you upload or download project data, the Transfer Sta-
tus window displays progress bars for every track in the 
project. The Transfer Status window features Cancel but-
tons for each of the transfer operations. Use these if you 
want to stop any transfer operation.
Sharing projects
The following is a description of how to set up things up in 
order to share a project you have created with other users.
When you want to share a project with others, you first 
decide which users you want to have access to the project, 
and then specify their read and write permissions.
To set up a list of users and their read and write permis-
sions, you have the following possibilities:
You can create a permission preset containing all the 
settings.
Storing permission presets is practical since they let you quickly and 
easily apply the same list of users and their permissions to future 
projects.
You can set up users and their permissions manually for 
each project.
This method also allows you to specify permissions for separate tracks in 
a project, as opposed to the entire project.
Alternatively, you can let all the participants in a network 
have access to a project, in which case you don’t have to 
make any special permission settings, but instead use the 
“Default Permissions”.
See “About the Default Permissions preset and the Guest user” on page 
13 for more information.
We will first describe all of these methods here, and then 
proceed to describe how you go about sharing a project.
Creating a permission preset
In the User Manager dialog, read and write permission 
settings for us
ers can be stored in permission presets. 
These can then be applied to other projects, i. e. the users 
will automatically get read and write permissions accord-
ing to the settings stored in the permission preset.
Read permission allows users to view and play back 
shared projects or tracks but not make any changes to 
them.
Write permission allows users to make any changes to 
shared projects or tracks.
It is not possible to have write permission without also having read per-
mission. 
						

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Networking
When creating a permission preset, there may generally 
be two kinds of situations:
Users have been established in the network and are on-
line.
Users are offline and have not been established in the 
network.
The following procedure describes how to create a per-
mission preset for a combination of the two situations 
above:
1.Open the User Manager dialog from the Network 
menu.
2.Click the plus sign below the “Permission Presets” 
column.
A dialog appears, allowing you to name the permission preset to be cre-
ated.
3.Type in the desired name and click “OK”.
The permission preset is created and added to the list.
The “User Pool” column to the right lists all the users who 
have entered a user name and at some point have been 
online and established in the network. Regardless of 
whether they are currently online or offline, they are still 
listed.However, there may also be instances when you want to 
add a user who is offline and hasn’t been established in 
the network. In such a case that user isn’t available in the 
User Pool list, but you can still add this user to a permis-
sion preset in the following way:
4.Click the plus sign below the “User Pool” column.
A user with a generic name – “User #” – is added to the list.
5.Double-click the generic name and type in the desired 
name.
The user you’re adding may have decided on a user name and entered it, 
as described on “Selecting a user name - alternative method” on page 8, 
but has been offline and therefore not yet established in the network. In 
this case, you can enter that name if you know it. Otherwise, enter a 
name of your own choice and later let the user know which name to use.
The next step is to add users to the permission preset.
6.Make sure the preset is selected in the “Permission 
Presets” column.
7.In the “User Pool” column, select the user(s) you want 
to add to the permission preset.
To select several users, hold down [Shift] or [Ctrl]/[Command] and click 
on the user names.
8.When you have selected the user(s) you want to add, 
click the Arrow symbol to the left of the “User Pool” col-
umn.
The users you selected will now be added to the “User” column in the 
middle of the dialog. 
						

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Networking
The next thing to do is to define the read and write permis-
sions for the added users:
9.In the Read and Write columns, the read and write 
permissions for each user can be specified. By default 
each added user has both read and write permission. If 
you don’t want a user to have read or write permission, 
make sure the corresponding column is unchecked by 
clicking in it.
Note that having write permission automatically means to also have read 
permission.
10.When you have added the desired users and specified 
their read and write permissions, the preset is complete.
The permission preset will now be available for use. See “Loading a per-
mission preset” on page 15 for information on how to utilize a saved per-
mission preset.
Permission presets apply to entire projects – i.e. when a 
permission preset is loaded, the read and write permission 
settings in it are valid 
for the entire project. You can how-
ever also specify permissions sepa
rately for each track, see 
“Setting up permissions for separate tracks” on page 14.
ÖNote that it is also possible to create a permission pre-
set in the Project Sharing and Permissions dialog, see 
“Saving the settings as a permission preset” on page 14.
Removing permission presets and users
Below each column to the right is a Remove button (the 
trash icon). You can remove one or several permission 
preset(s) or user(s) (including the “Guest” user – see be-
low) from the respective columns by selecting them and 
clicking this icon.
About the Default Permissions preset and the Guest user
The “Default Permissions” preset cannot be removed. You 
can however use it either as is, or you can modify it as you 
wish by adding and removing users. By default, it contains 
one user – “Guest” – with both read and write permission.If “Guest” is added to a permission preset, anyone in 
the network can utilize the Guest permissions.
I.e. if you share a project and have Guest as a user, anyone in the net-
work can join it and have the read and write permissions specified for the 
user “Guest”.
ÖIf you want to share a project with everyone in a net-
work and let everyone have both read and write permis-
sion for the entire project, the easiest and quickest way to 
do this is to use the De
fault Permissions preset as is.
Setting up users and permissions manually
Instead of creating a permission preset in the User Man-
ager dialog, you can use the “Project Sharing and Permis-
sions” dialog to manually set up which users should be 
allowed to share a project, and what read and write per-
missions they should have.
ÖYou can also save the permission settings you make in 
this dialog as a permission preset (see “Saving the set-
tings as a permission preset” on page 14). However, un-
like in the “User Manager” dialog, it is not possible to add 
users who have not yet been established in the network 
(see “Creating a permission preset” on page 11).
Proceed as follows:
1.Open the “Project Sharing and Permissions” dialog 
from the Network menu. 
						

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Networking
2.In the “All Users” column to the right, select the 
user(s) you want to share the project with.
All users in the network that have entered user names and are estab-
lished in the network are listed, along with the default “Guest” user (see 
“About the Default Permissions preset and the Guest user” on page 13). 
To select several users, hold down [Shift] or [Ctrl]/[Command] and click 
on the user names.
3.When you have selected the user(s) you want to share 
the project with, click the Add User button above the col-
umn (the left button).
The selected users are added to the “User Name” column above the “All 
Users” column.
To remove a user, select the user name in the “User 
Name” column and click the Delete User button below the 
column (the right button).
The user is removed from the “User Name” column. You can remove sev-
eral 
users at once. You will probably want to remove the “Guest” user if 
you don’t want everyone in the network to have full access to the project.
4.In the “Project & Tracks” column, make sure the top 
item (the project name) is selected.
This way, the settings you make affect the entire project, rather than se-
parate tracks.
5.Define the project read and write permissions for the 
added users, by checking and unchecking the Read and 
Write permission columns (“r”, “w”) as desired.
Note that having write permission automatically means also having read 
permission.
The settings you have now made are valid for the entire 
project. However, this dialog also allows you to specify 
read and write permissions separately for each track, as 
opposed to the entire project. This is described on “Set-
ting up permissions for separate tracks” on page 14.
Saving the settings as a permission preset
If you have manually added users and set up their read and 
write permissions for the project in the “Project Sharing and 
Permissions” dialog as described above, you can create a 
permission preset based on the settings you have made:
1.Click the plus sign to the left of the “Permission Pre-
sets” menu in the bottom right corner.
A dialog appears, allowing you to enter a name for the permission preset.
2.Type in the desired name and click “OK”.
The permission preset is saved and added to the menu. You can now 
also access this preset in the “User Manager” dialog, as described in the 
section “Creating a permission preset” on page 11.
Setting up permissions for separate tracks
The “Project Sharing and Permissions” dialog also offers 
the possibility of specifying read and write permissions 
separately for each track in the project, if you so wish.
To make permission settings on a track basis, do the fol-
lowing:
1.In the “Projects & Tracks” column, select the track(s) 
for which you want to make separate settings.
As you can see, the right part of the dialog now only contains a checkbox 
and the text “Override Project Permissions”.
2.Activate the “Override Project Permissions” option.
The dialog changes again, and in the left column, you can see that the 
text “Uses Project Permissions” for the track(s) has now been replaced 
with the text “Overrides Project Settings” in red.
3.Add users and specify their read and write permis-
sions for the track(s) as described in the section “Setting 
up users and permissions manually” on page 13.
4.When you are done, select the top item (the project 
name) in the “Project & Tracks” column again. 
						

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Networking
Note that permission settings for separate tracks are not 
saved in a permission preset. You can however use per-
mission presets in conjunction with separate track permis-
sions, by first loading a preset with the project permissions 
(see “Loading a permission preset” on page 15) and then 
making settings for separate tracks.
ÖIt is also possible to make separate track permissions 
in the project Inspector. Selecting a track in the Track list, 
opening the Network section in the Inspector (this section 
is hidden by default, see the chapter “Customizing” in the 
Operation Manual) and clicking the “Override Project Per-
missions” button (the key symbol) makes it possible to 
make read and write permission settings for the track di-
rectly in the Inspector.Loading a permission preset
As previously mentioned, a permission preset contains in-
formation specifying which users should be allowed to 
share a project and their read and write permissions for it.
To load a permission preset for the active project, proceed 
as follows:
1.Open the “Project Sharing and Permissions” dialog 
from the Network menu.
2.In the bottom right corner of the dialog, click anywhere 
in the text box to open a pop-up menu.
The menu lists all available permission presets.
3.From the menu, select the permission preset you wish 
to use.
As you can see, the users defined in the permission preset are now listed 
in the User Name column, and their read and write permissions are dis-
played.
You can now either use the settings of the loaded permis-
sion preset as they are for the shared project, or you can 
make manual adjustments on a project or track basis (see 
“Setting up users and permissions manually” on page 13).
Sharing a project
When you have set up all the users and their permissions – 
i.e. loaded a permission preset and/or manually added 
users and specified their permissions for this particular 
project – it’s time to actually share the project.
This can be done in the following ways:
In the “Project Sharing and Permissions” dialog
1.If it is not already active, activate the network by check-
ing the option “Active” on the Network menu.
2.Open the “Project Sharing and Permissions” dialog 
from the Network menu. 
						

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Networking
3.Activate the “Share Project” option.
The project is now shared and available to the users you have specified.
To revoke sharing of the project, deactivate the “Share 
Project” option.
You can at any time make changes in this dialog, i.e. 
add or remove users and change permissions, and then 
update the shared project accordingly for all users by 
making the desired changes and clicking the “Commit” 
button.
Quick Sharing
ÖIf you just want to share a project with full read and 
write access for every user in the network without loading 
any permission preset or manually setting up users, the 
easiest way to do this is to click the “Share Project” button 
on the Project window toolbar (or activating “Share 
Project” in the “Project Sharing and Permissions” dialog) .
This is provided you haven’t made any changes to the “Default Permis-
sions” preset. The reason is that the default permissions (with only the 
user “Guest”) grant all users full access (see “About the Default Permis-
sions preset and the Guest user” on page 13).
In the “Shared Projects” dialog
1.If it is not already active, activate the network by check-
ing the option “Active” on the Network menu.
2.Open the “Shared Projects” dialog from the Network 
menu.
3.Click the “Share Active Project” button.
This will open the “Project Sharing and Permissions” dialog, to let you 
verify that all permissions are OK before sharing. You can then share the 
project in the dialog as described above. When the active project is 
shared, it appears in the “My Shared Projects” folder.
The “Share Active Project” button.
To revoke sharing of a project, select it in the “My 
Shared Projects” folder and click the “Unshare Selected 
Project” button.
The “Unshare Selected Project” button.
Deactivating a shared project
If you are sharing a project and want to stop working on it, 
you do this by deactivating the network. When you deacti-
vate the network during work with a shared project, the 
other users will be disconnected from it. However, sharing 
will not be revoked (as described above) unless you spec-
ify it – meaning that the next time you connect to the net-
work, the project will still be shared, allowing the other 
users to join it without you having to make permission set-
tings and share it all over again.
To deactivate the network, pull down the Network 
menu, select the item “Active”, so that it is not checked.
A dialog will appear, asking you to confirm that you want 
to disconnect the network.
All the users will be disconnected from the project. The project will still 
be shared when you connect to the network again 
						

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Networking
To reactivate the network, check the item “Active” on 
the Network menu again.
A dialog will appear, asking you to confirm that you want 
to reconnect the network.
All the users with whom you previously shared the project will now be 
able to join it again.
About the project folder
When you’re sharing a project, you have to decide whether 
the project folder for it should be located on your local hard 
disk, or – if you’re sharing the project over a LAN and have 
access to a common file server – if it should be located on 
the server.
You should consider the following:
If the project folder is located on your hard disk, the files 
it contains will be copied to the other users’ hard disks, 
and their project folders.
This way, work on the files will be done locally on the computer of each 
user, and the upd
ated files are then copied to the hard disks of the other 
users.
If you have access to a file server and place the project 
folder and its contents on it, the other users can specify 
this folder as the project folder when they join the project.
In this case, the project files will not be copied to the other users’ hard 
disks, but are instead accessed directly on the server. Working on the 
files directly on a server may be slower compared to working on them lo-
cally. On the other hand, the files will not have to be copied to each hard 
disk every time they are updated.
Where to put large media files
If you have a file server that is fast enough for connected 
workstations to call audio or video playback of files stored 
on this server, you should place large media files on this 
server to avoid excessive network traffic.However, when you are using a Windows workstation, note 
that when you connect your file server using a drive letter 
(e. g. V:\), Nuendo will treat this server as a local drive, 
w h i ch  m e a n s  t ha t  a n y  da t a  f r om  t h is  s e r v er  us ed  i n  a  s ha r e d  
project will always be copied over the Nuendo network.
Therefore, try placing your large files on a file server and 
import them into Nuendo without using the “Copy File to 
Working Directory” option. The server path should now be 
displayed in the Pool.
Joining projects
The “Shared Projects” dialog lets you join projects shared 
by other users in the network.
This dialog lists all the established users in the network, 
and any projects they are sharing. For you to be able to 
join a project, the user sharing it must be online and have 
given you read and/or write access.
To join a project, proceed as follows:
1.Connect to the network by checking the “Active” op-
tion on the Network menu.
2.Open the “Shared Projects” dialog from the Network 
menu.
3.If necessary, click the “Rescan Network” button (the 
rightmost button on the toolbar).
By clicking this button, you instruct Nuendo to scan the network for 
any updated information about online users and/or shared projects, and 
refresh the Shared Projects dialog accordingly.
 The item “Users in Local Network” lists all the established us-
ers in a LAN.
 The item “Global IP Network” lists all the users with whom you 
have established WAN connections (see “Setting up WAN 
connections” on page 9). 
						

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Networking
4.If there are plus signs beside these items, this indi-
cates that they contain lists of users that can be displayed. 
Click the plus signs to display the users.
5.If a user is sharing projects, this is indicated by a plus 
sign beside the user name. Click this to display a list of the 
projects shared by this user.
If there are shared projects you can join, these are indi-
cated by the text “You can join” in green.
6.To join a project, select it and click the “Join Project” 
button (or just double-click the project name in the list).
A dialog appears, allowing you to specify the project folder.
The “Join Project” button.
7.Select a project folder.
There may be two cases which require special approaches:
 If you are connected over a LAN, the owner of the project may 
have decided to keep the project files in a special, common 
project folder on a server. If this is the case, you will need to 
specify this folder as the Project folder.
 If the owner of the project keeps the project files in a project 
folder on a local hard disk, select a local folder on your hard 
disk. In this case, the project files will be copied to the project 
folder on your hard disk.
See “About the project folder” on page 17 for more infor-
mation about the project folder in shared projects.
8.When you have selected a project folder, the project 
and the files are copied to your hard disk (unless you’re 
working on a server, as described above).
If you have access not to the entire project, but only separate tracks, only 
the tracks for which you have read or write permission will be loaded.
Downloading selected tracks
When you click the “Download Selected Tracks” button, 
you can select which tracks from which shared projects 
you want to download to your computer.
You will be asked whether you wish to create a new 
project. When you select No, the downloaded tracks will 
be added to your active project. Note that you cannot 
download tracks into a shared project.
Merging your project to the network project
When you click the “Merge Active Project to Selected 
Network Project” button, the currently active project will 
be merged with the selected Network project.
You will be asked whether you wish to download the 
shared project before merging. 
Clicking “No” allows you to simply commit your tracks 
without having to download all shared tracks. (Please stay 
connected until all others have received your tracks.)
When you click “Yes”, this is like joining a project by 
clicking the Join Project button (see above) except that 
you can join using your active project instead of having to 
create a new project locally. 
Then, the Project Sharing and Permissions dialog for your 
local project will be displayed. When you are happy with all 
permission settings, click on “Start Merge”. This will join the 
Network project and download all available tracks. When 
the download is complete, you can commit your tracks.
Disconnecting from projects
If you have joined a project and want to stop working on it, 
you do this by deactivating the network. When you deacti-
vate the network during work with a shared project, you 
will disconnect from it. However, you will still have access 
to the project in the future as long as the owner shares it 
with you. The next time you connect to the network, the 
project will still be shared with you (unless the owner has 
changed the permissions) and you can join it again.
To deactivate the network, pull down the Network menu 
and select the Active item, so that it is not checked.
A dialog will appear, asking you to confirm that you want 
to disconnect from the network.
You will disconnect from the project. 
						

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Networking
To reactivate the network, select “Active” on the Net-
work menu again.
A dialog will appear, asking you to confirm that you want 
to reconnect to the network.
If the project is accessible on the network, you will rejoin it and all the 
project files will be loaded (see below).
Working with shared projects
The following are some general descriptions about the 
common procedures for working with shared projects 
over a network.
Any user who has write access to the project or separate 
tracks in it can make changes and commit these to the 
other users. The communication and transfer of updated 
files is handled mainly in the Network section for each 
track in the Inspector.
The permission status of a track is indicated in the Inspec-
tor as follows:
If the Network tab in the Inspector is displayed in light 
blue, this indicates that you have both read and write ac-
cess to the track, and can make changes to it.
If the Network tab in the Inspector is orange, this indi-
cates that you have only read access to the track, and 
can’t make changes to it.The Network section contains a host of controls which are 
used for a number of network related functions for the 
track:
In addition to the above, the Network section also dis-
plays the user name of the owner of a project you join.
ÖNote that you can also customize Nuendo so that the 
four main network control buttons (update, auto update, 
lock and commit) are available in the Track list. This is 
done in the Track Controls Settings dialog. Please refer to 
the chapter “Customizing” in the Nuendo Operation Man-
ual for instructions on how to do this.
The network controls in the Track list.
Committing changes
To a track
When you have made changes to a track, proceed as fol-
lows to commit them and make them known to the users 
in the network:
1.Open the Network section for the track in the Inspector 
by clicking its tab.
If you have set things up so that the commit button is available in the 
track list, as described above, you don’t have to use the Inspector. Note 
that the track must be selected in the track list.
2.Click the button “Commit changes on this track”.
The changes are committed to the network. 
Open the “User 
Manager” dialog 
(see “The User 
Manager dialog” 
on page 24).
 Automatically 
apply updates.Get exclusive ac-
cess (lock track).Open the “Project Sharing 
and Permissions” dialog (see 
“The Project Sharing and Per-
missions dialog” on page 22).
Load 
available update.
Commit changes 
on this track.
Override Project Settings – only 
available for the owner of the project. 
(see “Setting up permissions for sep-
arate tracks” on page 14). 
						

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Networking
ÖNote that if more than one track is selected, clicking 
this button for one selected track will commit the changes 
on all selected tracks.
ÖNote also that for the owner of a  p r o je ct ,  t h is  i s  a ls o  t he 
way to update permission settings made directly in the In-
spector (see “Setting up permissions for separate tracks” 
on page 14).
To a project
If you have made changes to several tracks, or made other 
project changes, you will probably want to commit all 
changes at once:
Pull down the Network menu and select “Commit 
Changes”.
The changes are committed over the network. Note that there is also a 
button for this function available in the Project window toolbar. However, 
this is not visible by default. Refer to the chapter “Customizing” in the 
Nuendo Operation Manual for information about how to customize the 
toolbar.
Loading changes
When other users have made changes to a track and 
committed them over the network, the “Load available up-
date” button in the network controls for the corresponding 
track will light up in blue to indicate that you can load the 
changes and update the project.
The “Load available update” button is located in the Net-
work section of the Inspector. However, when working with 
shared projects, you will probably want to customize Nu-
endo so that it is also available in the Track list (see above), 
since this makes it somewhat easier to get a visual overview 
of when committed changes are available.You can use two different methods to load available 
changes to tracks over the network:
Click the “Load available update” button in the Inspec-
tor or the Track list.
This will load the available update for the track.
Click the “Automatically apply updates” button in the In-
spector or the Track list for one or more tracks.
This way, all changes committed to the track(s) by other users will be au-
tomatically loaded without requiring your intervention.
There is also a special method for loading changes made 
to the tempo and signature tracks, as well as loading new 
tracks:
Click the “Sync project to network state” button in the 
Project window toolbar.
This button lights up in blue to indicate that there are changes available. 
Click it to have any new tracks and any changes made to the tempo and 
signature tracks loaded.
ÖBy default, the Network controls are not visible in the 
toolbar. If you want them to be visible, you need to cus-
tomize the toolbar, as described in the chapter “Customiz-
ing” in the Nuendo Operation Manual.
ÖNote that you can also undo an update! If you have 
loaded an available update, you can select “Undo Net Up-
date” from the Edit menu. Similarly, you can “undo the 
undo” by selecting “Redo Net Update”.
Locking tracks
If you have write permission for a track and want to pre-
vent other users from making changes to it, you can lock it 
for your own use only.
Click the “Get exclusive access” button for the track in 
the Inspector or the Track list.
The track is locked for your exclusive use. When a track is locked by a 
user, the “Get exclusive access” button lights up in blue.
To unlock a track, click the “Get exclusive access” but-
ton again so it is no longer lit.
The owner of a project has the possibility of unlocking a 
track, regardless of who locked it:
!Please note that each time you commit a change to a 
track or project, network activity is initiated, slowing 
the network down. Depending on the speed of the 
network, it may take some time before the changes 
are distributed to all users and work can continue, so 
commit changes sparingly and only when necessary.