I have recently read an article that said that all the storage bank discs have a life span of almost ten years and that once it is written, its lifespan diminishes to just under five years. Another article said that the lifespan of a burnt CD/DVD disc is actually extending due to the process.

I do not know what to believe anymore, as I tested an eight year old regular disc (did not pay too much money on it as I used it to store some temporary files) and it worked just fine.

But just to be sure that my Special Edition DVDs will not make me any surprises, I decided to check them for errors and those that were barely breathing to back them up and write them on a different, newer, better disc.

SuperCloneDVD 5.0.9 is developed by MasterSoft Inc and its price is $39.90. The good news is that the developer gives the chance to try the application before buying it. You can use the software for five times before it expires. The trial version is fully operational and there is no other limitation.

The interface has a dark look thanks to the grey and black color combination used. It will not give you too much eye trouble, but the options are a bit ensconced and only hovering with the mouse over them will reveal what each of them does.

What can you do with this software? First of all, being a DVD backup application, it allows you to copy the DVDs to your hard drive and then it lets the user burn discs. The included burner does not support speed setting although the market is flooded with discs that support being written at higher speeds than 4x, and there are also optical units just waiting to do that.

The application window is divided into two sections: one intended for making all the necessary source DVD settings and one for the Target DVD. The first one come equipped with options for backing up DVD from a disc or choosing a DVD from a folder on your computer. Some additional settings allow the user to select the movie backup/writing method: clone main movie content (supports DVD 9 to DVD 5), clone the full disc (also supporting DVD9 to DVD5) and splitting the movie so that it fits two DVD5 discs.

In this window, the user will get all the details about the movie: number of audio channels, number of subtitles, the processing ratio, movie size, etc. The second window, intended for the Target, lets you choose the DVD writer (I ran into a bit of a problem here as I have installed an External DVD Writer and the application could not see it and I could not burn the files with it. It is odd enough, as I backed up a DVD using this device.).

If the user wants to save the file on the hard drive first and burn it later, all there is to do is to specify a folder on the disk. If you are burning the movie to DVD disc, then you will also have to specify a temporary folder on the drive of at least 8GB (but you should have about 10GB just to be safe). Saving the DVD-video file on your computer takes a very short time (shorter than with the other softwares).

Besides the settings available in the two above mentioned windows, Super DVD Cloner is equipped with an Options button. It allows you to perform a bit of trimming of the file you are about to save. Thus, the user can choose only the desired audio or subtitle files and it permits choosing the resulting DVD size (4.7, 4.7-50MB, 4.7-100MB, 4.7-200MB, 4.7-500MB all but the first one being Safe mode, and 3.9 GB - DVD-R 1.0).

My recommendations when using this application are to take it one step at a time. I tried to create a backup from one disc to another and I succeeded, but I had to try it a few times as the software would keep telling me that the disc I had in my burning device was not proper.


The Good

Super Clone DVD proved to be a good backup solution and it will perform the desired job, even if the way to the finish has a few bumps. The interface is handling well and intuitive enough to pose no problem.

The Bad

Equipping the burning engine with an option to let the user choose the burning speed is becoming a must as technology is evolving and writing DVDs at 4x is getting more and more boring. Some minor spelling mistakes in the Help file will not make it unreadable, and you should get over them with no difficulty, especially when it gives you all the needed information to use the software.

The Truth

Super Clone DVD does not stand out from the average DVD backup utilities with absolutely nothing. But compared to the prices of softwares like Clone DVD or DVD Cloner, it is quite accessible and gets the job done.

Here are some snapshots of the application in action: