I just got one question, what are the T-Shirts for?

Besides from preventing fellows being too distracted by the sight of Cali doing a topless GeekBrief to hear what she has to say about the build?

Geez, I remember all the uproar when Brandi Chastain took off her jersey in the 99 World Cup. You’d think she stripped naked, but a sports bra doesn’t expose as much as a bikini top did in the 1950’s.

Getting back to GBTVPC, though, it’s a great choice of components. I’ve been an big AMD fan ever since I learned that Intel added a feature to the P4 that reports back to Intel and Microsoft your unique CPU ID (Big brother at its worst). It’s amazing the different a year makes. This time last year, your $90 Athlon 3800+ CPU cost $323!

Cali, in the Podcast you mentioned that you read 3 books, but only gave the name and link to one of them. What were the other two?

Googaly moogaly!! I knew the case was big, but it really is BIG!! It’s monstrously huge!!

Otherwise, have fun with your PC build!! I’m sure it will go smoothly..

I too think that the internal built in video card should be just fine..

It’s feels soooo good to watch you go PC - even though you “say” you’re a die hard appler.

Showing my age a little (poor memory) but visions of a Fish Dance are flashing in my mind :)!

Wow! I absolutely love the eye candy…and the PC case ain’t bad either. ;)

You are giving me the courage to take on a project like this myself. This will be fun.

Thanks,

D

In true geek style, it should remain the same shirt with new spill stains of Jolt cola appearing with each new episode. Seriously, I could not have waited all this time to start the project let alone space it out over days. I would have pulled all nighters, missed work, neglected the family until it was done. Really, is there any other way?

Case looks great. Hope the stand can support the weight :0)

Just a couple of friendly comments.

1. No onboad graphics on that board, so you are going to have to get a graphics card, whatever you were holding in your hand when you were saying “we choose not to get a graphics card”, was a graphics card so….you should be ok. If not, just get a cheap, fan-less card from somewhere…like the one you were holding in your hand. Haha. If you are looking to someday use Vista on that thing, you want to make sure it’s “Aero ready”, but that should be no problem.

2. The Power Supply is quiet for the same reason it is big. A larger fan can move more air at a slower speed than a smaller fan. Smaller fans need to spin faster so the make more noise. The PSU also has some very big heatsinks inside of it, again allowing the fan to spin at a slower speed, and keeping it quiet. That’s why that model is known for being quiet.

3. If you are looking to quiet things a little further you might want to think about a different heatsink and fan combo for that processor. The stock heatsink and fan might be the loudest thing in that case. Same rules apply for this as the power supply, huge = quiet. I’d look into something like this:

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?Item=N82E16835118019

I really enjoy the show, and your enthusiasm toward the geeky stuff makes my day.

I believe that Hauppauge is pronouced as “hop hog”. Great show!

Forgive her Doug. Texas has a dialect of its own. My cousin, originally from Freeport, TX, has lived in NJ for 18 years now and she still says things I don’t understand.

I check out your podcast from time to time and if this was the first episode I doubt I would of watched again. Hardware obviously is not your forte. Have you ever seen a power supply before? All ATX power supplies are the same size as that “huge” one thats bigger then a mac mini.

Then I really did laugh out loud when you were surprised to find a heatsink along with your processor. The best part: “Its…. a… cooler!” No, sorry, this is a cooler:
ttp://www.showyourlogo.com/custom-cooler/igloo-cooler.jpg

You are going to want a video card. If you ever come around to putting a blue ray or HDDVD drive in your PC you will need a video card that supports HDCP. Without it, all your video will get scaled down to less than DVD quality. This is an effort by the MPAA to stop pirating. Then you will also want a nice digital connection to your TV so VGA is out. Unless your integrated card has DVI I would go with a graphics card that has HDMI or DVI.

Put the drives in a RAID 0 array. They will be twice as fast. You can also overclock your processor if its not performing to your needs.

I’m pretty sure those capture cards you bought have a built in MPEG-2 encoders. So if you use them to encode it will take ALL the strain off the processor. It will be even faster because these processors are dedicated for encoding video.

I would suggest getting this: http://www.anandtech.com/casecooling/showdoc.aspx?i=2943 or it’s sibling. Nice quite cooling. You have plenty of space for it.

And yes, unless the board has AT LEAST DVI… get some kind of video card. You have an HDTV, don’t waste it w/ composite output from the computer.

And ditch the books, do it old school… just try and pray it doesn’t blow up :)

after watching it twice i got the Home Improvement reference LOL

I miss the out takes. You did choose a pretty slick case. Most people are amazed at how simple it is to put together a computer, but don’t let them know, cause then i’d be out of a job! :-p

@Kyle: None of the power supplies in any of my PCs have ever been that big. And Robert Thompson calls it a CPU cooler in the book as well, so I’m not off base with that.

Companies like Dell and HP will make proprietary power supplies that only fit in their cases. Every ATX power supply is the exact same size.

Your tuners do not have mpeg-2 encoders so the CPU will be responsible for encoding.

@Doug: Haha, so true. Though I wouldn’t mind, to be honest.
But about the CPU… nope. The AM2 Athlons have Presidio, something associated to Trusted Computing. Remember Paladium? That sort of stuff. The CPU ID thing is harmless, really harmless. The most advanced safe CPUs are the S939 AMDs, Intel has LaGrande, which is quite similar.
And… its a Single Core CPU in a world of dual cores. Might be a bit too slow, I’ve got the same CPU and even with CoreAVC the performance sometimes isn’t enough to play HD material. The X2 CPUs don’t need more power for a lot more speed, sometimes even less.

About HDCP… well, yeah, though you could download the movies from the internet aswell, pretty much the same quality, but without any copy protection. Will play perfectly on any device you might have. Or simply use a program that cracks the DRM stuff they film industry uses. Again those who want to stay legal are the ones who have to suffer. Oh when will they understand…

Cabling… uh… I think I’ve got some experience, but the cables are always a mess in my systems…

@Cali: Since you’re going for silent I’d suggest picking up a different cooler. The ones that come with a CPU usually aren’t good. Arctic Cooling are pretty decent, though there are probably better (and waaaay more expensive) choices. And you would get to say huuuuge again.

Ps: Cool shirt you’ve got there :D

This is really great. Makes me want to go out and build a new PC. But I think I’m going Mac next, we’ll see.

You’re pile of t-shirts reminded me of my ex, who probably had a few hundred (or at least it seemed like that many) and would insist on not washing them till they were all dirty. You don’t want to know how we stored them in between washes. :)