Warning for unsupported file formats
I have imported my whole photo library to Monument in the last months. And just by accident I found out that most videos from the earlier years are missing there. I was just about to erase my old hard disks and I would have lost all videos of the first years of my kids!
As far as I understand, the import completely ignored the file format AVI.
It is understandable that Monument cannot support all of the older formats. But it has at least to warn about not imported files.
Please add some check here!
Regards,
Toni
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I agree. I would like to understand what files are skipped, and also which ones for which errors were encountered (I have several that show as errors, but cannot find out what the filenames are). These two options would allow users to know which files are not backed up/transferred, and for which special measures can be taken by the user.
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Toni - it greatly helps if you think of the Monument system not as a backup solution but as a way of enabling you to browse (most of) your photos via Face Recognition, Camera Model, or by Date. You should never consider it as a complete backup solution, for I do not think that's what it is designed to do, at least not yet. If it was designed as a complete backup solution, it would copy ALL the files you specify and then only process those that it can. Currently, it will ignore file formats that are documented as "not supported", and does not report back on what it did not copy.
Once I realized this, I have started using Monument for the sole purpose of conveniently accessing my library, and am happier with the product since I understand it's capability (managed expectations).
I continue to backup my photos onto separate external hard drives which I keep at different locations (eg. except for when I'm syncing them, one is always kept off-site in case of a fire at either location).
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Hi Fern.
do you really think of it like that? Then I ask you a question: what do you do when you remove the SD card from your camera? Are you importing the fotos to your computer and tag them and after that import them to Monument and tag them?
That's not very practicable, don't you think? Therefore for me Monument is not only a backup but the primary place to store media.
And even Monument describes itself like this:
Automatic back up
End your photo mess! Monument automatically backs up all your photos from smartphones, cameras, computers, and SD cards all to your own hard drive.
So it should be a complete solution, which it currently is not as it can leave stuff out without even telling you.
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Hi Anton
Yes, although I initially hoped it would also be a backup solution for me, what really attracted me was the ability to have automatic face-recognition and a way of tagging groups of photos for easy lookup and retrieval. I have uploaded over 94,000 photos and 1400 videos from various sources. I am finally getting to my DSLR photos from the past few years which I estimate will add another 50000 photos to the Monument's library. It will be interesting to see what comes up after I've named the face tags for the main people.
Because it does not copy non-supported file formats, which might be the case for some of my older sources, and because I don't get a clear list of what the errors were (there were not many but I still would like to know which didn't go through), I do not consider it as a backup solution for myself.
If I was only using it for photos coming from my phone and current cameras, then it would probably do the job of properly backing up things since those photos are likely all supported formats.
I have not used, not plan to use the SD card format, at least not straight from my cameras because I want better control over what's going into it. Also, I only clear my SD cards when I need to, so I am pretty sure it would take a long time to process the older files which it will eventually decide are duplicates. I don't really want my SD card stuck in the Monument for hours and/or days.
I agree it should be a complete solution, and might be for some (for photos only originating from recent cameras), but not for me at this time.
I'm not a professional photographer. I just take a lot of photos :)
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just wanted to add that regarding unsupported formats, this is where the error reporting would be handy. If those are not treated as errors, then a report showing which files were NOT copied would be extremely useful and would alert us to unsupported formats. It is, of course, easier and more sensible for Monument to provide a list of supported formats than to try to provide a comprehensive list of all unsupported formats (that would be a tough list for anyone to come up with!).
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