To test the program we wrote a short script about our editors going out for donuts (pure fiction, of course). After entering the characters and the scene locations we started the script with the first scene location. We typed "int" (for interior) and pressed the space bar. The program automatically reformatted the "int" to all capital letters, added the correct spaces and opened the scene location list. We clicked the mouse on the location we wanted and pressed tab. The cursor moved to the next location and the "time of day" list opened. We picked "morning." The cursor moved to the next line where we wanted to start our dialogue. We hit tab to move the cursor to the character title location and the character list opened. We just typed the first letter of a name and that name appeared correctly formatted. If you have two characters with the same name you type the first two letters. Then we hit return and the cursor moved to the correct location for that character's dialogue to start. We wanted to describe what the character was doing before his dialogue so we pressed tab and the cursor moved to the correct location for action and appeared inside parenthesis (action descriptions in scripts are parenthetical). After typing the action we hit return and we were ready for the dialogue. When we finished the last dialogue of our scene we went to the next line and pressed tab three times. The cursor moved to the correct location for transitions and the transition list opened. We choose our transition and pressed enter. Our first scene was done.

We created several more scenes this way and then decided to check how the scenes flowed together. We opened the outline menu from the pull down menu and chose the scene cards option. We then decided we needed to reorder the scenes so we closed the scene cards and opened the scene shuffle option, also under the outline menu. The scene shuffle menu appeared as a list of the scene descriptions. We were able to move scenes around quickly by just dragging and dropping a scene where we wanted it.

Scriptware is a handy way to write scripts. The program takes most of the troublesome housekeeping chores out of the scriptwriting process and makes it very easy to reorder the scenes in a script. Scriptware would be useful to any writer--hobbyist or professional--who works with dramatic programs. Unfortunately, because it doesn't format for A/V scripts, it is not as useful for producers of industrial videos or training tapes.

Bravado 2000 Video Capture Card
($699 with Adobe Premiere 4.2 and $649 with Ulead MediaStudio Pro 5.0)
Truevision, Inc.
2500 Walsh Ave.
Santa Clara, CA 95051
(800) 522-8783
www.truevision.com

Tech Specs

As the price of consumer desktop video (DTV) products continues to drop, more prosumer and advanced hobbyist producers have started jumping into digital video.

Truevision has kept the needs of prosumer and advanced hobbyist video producers in mind. Truevision's Bravado 1000 was an early product for this market that was designed by another company and marketed by Truevision. The Bravado 2000, on the other hand, was designed entirely by Truevision and includes better features at a lower cost.

The Bravado 2000 is a video and audio capture and playback board that features a breakout box and hardware codecs. The breakout box is a very handy feature that moves all of the audio and video inputs and outputs from the back of the board to a small box that sits on your desktop. Truevision includes either a breakout box or cable set on nearly all of its products. Another important change from the Bravado 1000 is the addition of audio capture. The Bravado 2000 includes both audio and video hardware codecs on the card. You will need a separate audio board if you wish to capture audio from your CD-ROM drive.

Our Benchmark test computer used a Pentium 200MHz CPU with 64MB of RAM and a Seagate Barracuda Wide SCSI-2 hard drive for video capturing. Because the Bravado 2000 board is a full length PCI board, you may have some trouble fitting it into your computer's box. Often, a full-length board will be blocked by the CPU's fan. We had to do some board shuffling (moving boards currently in the system around to make room for a longer board) to install the Bravado because all the open slots were in front of the CPU and the Bravado board would not fit. Installing the software went smoothly. The version of Bravado 2000 we tested was shipped with Adobe Premiere 4.2, which was also a simple install. Bravado 2000 is also available with Ulead MediaStudio Pro 5.0.

Next we connected a Panasonic PV-DV710 DV camcorder to the breakout box inputs (using the DV camcorder's S-video output) and an NTSC monitor to the output of the breakout box. We found the breakout box is a great way to get video and audio in and out of the board. The S-video jacks on the breakout box are some of the best jacks we've seen. They have spring-loaded retainers so the plugs are easy to get in, but stay in place once there.