I’ve had quite alot of correspondence about my previous article about the ATP Pro SDHC cards. This has mainly been people asking me how to get hold of ATP cards now that Amazon have hiked their prices and which adaptor is best.

I had been using MxR adaptors, originally with the Transcend 16gb cards, but had migrated to the ATP cards when problems started to surface. But MxR’s rivals over at MxM now bundle their adaptors with ATP cards. I simply couldn’t resist, I ordered up a MxM lockable adaptor and 16gb ATP card.

Now MxM being in Australia and me being in the UK I was prepared for a wait. However I ordered on a Saturday and the following Wednesday these arrived:

An ATP 16gb SDHC card bundled with a MxM lockable adaptor

Top marks for delivery there. I know UK retailers who would have struggled to get me a package that quickly let alone fly it half way around the world.

The idea of a lockable adaptor has long appealed to me. The problem with the existing adaptors was the SDHC card had a tendency to pop out if you were not careful. With this solution you seal the card inside the adaptor and forget about it. You can get the card out again though with careful prising.

The SDHC card being inserted into the adaptor. Note the small piece of plastic to the left which fits over the top of the card when the SDHC is fully inserted. When inserted the card sits fully within the adaptor and the piece of plastic is flush.

It’s always been thought that the overcranking limit is determined by the USB bus inside the EX1, not by the adaptor or the SDHC card. Personally I’d found it hard to sustain 42-44 fps for no longer than a couple of minutes before the dreaded “media restore”. So basically I wouldn’t dare try using it for anything in the real world but it was a good test to see how well a card and adaptor combo functioned. After all, the higher the overcrank speed the more “headroom” you have for general recording. I had assumed it was a pipe dream to be able record continuously without error at above 40fps without using SxS as it was the camera causing the problems not the adaptors.

I inserted the ATP card into the MxM adaptor and overcranked to 50fps on a 25fps timebase. I didn’t think this would work for more than a few seconds, but hey it was worth a shot! I was surprised to see I managed to achieve nearly 3 minutes of overcranked footage with this combination before I hit a problem. That’s 90 seconds of realtime. Intrigued I then inserted the same card into an MxM adaptor.

The same ATP card being inserted into a standard MxR adaptor

Using the same card in the MxR (and with the same view in the viewfinder) the camera quit at 22 seconds (12 seconds real time).

To test this further I then tried a test at 48fps. I placed a moving image in the viewfinder and started recording with the MxM combo.

MxM and ATP combo overcranked at 48fps

As you can see from my blurry photo, at the 12 minute mark the recording was still fine. At 20 minutes the recording was fine. I would have left it for longer but I had other tests to do.

Then I placed the ATP card back in the MxR.

Overcrank the MxR to 48fps and not long before you hit problems.

Again apologies for the blurry cameraphone image but you can just see that the MxR/ATP combo has produced an error after 29 seconds.

Therefore the conclusion must be that the MxM lockable adaptors are faster than the standard MxR’s. I must point out that MxR produce their own lockable adaptor and MxM produce a “standard” adaptor. However I do not have these available to me.

Intrigued by all of this I dug out one of my “dodgy” slow Transcend cards. This was one of the cards that took 10 seconds to clear the red light and wouldn’t overcrank beyond 35fps. I can report however that there is no difference in performence between either adaptor. Both still took 10 seconds to clear, both wouldn’t overcrank beyond 35fps. A dodgy card is still a dodgy card it seems.

In conclusion the ATP and MxM bundle is worth a look. The fact is that these adaptors have more “headroom” than previous cards I’ve used. Not only do they offer better overcranking facilities, but critically you get the peace of mind that you have that extra headroom there.

MxM also offer the ability to order up their adaptors and the ATP cards together which relieves the problem of trying to source the ATP cards in the UK or other countries where they are hard to find. However UK readers be warned, you will be stung for import duty and VAT. I ordered two adaptors and a SDHC card and had to pay the courier £24 when it was delivered.

The MxM and ATP combos can be ordered from here:  http://mxmexpress.com/

The disclaimer from my previous blog entry still applies. SDHC cards are an unofficial solution. Please test your cards thoroughly before using them for a shoot. If in any doubt use SxS and despite the MxM cards overcranking to 48fps I still recommend you stick to SxS for overcranking work. Overcranking is great for testing an SDHC card/adaptor combo but there is precious little room for error or variations in datarate at 48fps when we know the card will fail at 50fps.

Media2u is a corporate video production company based on the Surrey and Hampshire border in the UK.