Naturally, I need a new computer for the build. I put together a fairly cheap system that should have enough juice to get through a few years of my needs:
- Intel Desktop Motherboard LGA1155 DDR3 1600 mini-ITX - BOXDH77DF. Smaller is better. No need for additional cards or other peripherals
- Intel Core I3-2105 dual-core processor 3.1 GHz, 3 MB cache. Nothing excessive, but nothing with a handicap either.
- Kingston HyperX Blu Red Series 2x4 GB 240-pin 1333 DDR3 SDRAM. Enough to manage video editing if I don't want to use my office machine
- Microsoft LifeCam Studio 1080p Webcam (for time lapse) with 32 foot USB active extension cable for placement anywhere
- IN WIN BP655.300TB3L Black Steel / Plastic Mini-ITX Tower Computer Case. Small and has USB 3.0 ports on the front.
- Microsoft Right-Handed Comfort Mouse 6000 for Business, Black. Wanted two right thumb buttons to make web navigation easier. Wired means no worries about batteries.
- Microsoft Wired Keyboard 200 for Business - Black. This is going to get beat up so go cheap. $8 with two day shipping. How was that profitable for Amazon?
- Microsoft Windows 7 Home Premium
- 500 GB primary and 640 GB secondary hard drives. Both recycled from other machines. No need for speed here.
- Recycled Cambridge SoundWorks SBS36 computer speakers from an old Gateway
- Need my tunes: The Current, KEXP, Digitally Imported and some bhangra
- HP LP2065 20" LCD monitor (was sitting around unused). 1600x1200. That should be okay.
- Put together a neato mouse pad on 20-Feb-13.
Many thanks to Ed and his incredible RV-10 website for saving me time on finding good time lapse software: booru WeCame 2.0. You can read about his setup here. I've found that Movie Maker chokes when using more than 300 images. So each day is assembled as a series of movies, stitched back together with Avidemux. This lets me avoid running the videos through the compressor again with all of the associated loss artifacts.
The two hard drives will be more than adequate for my space needs. The 640 GB drive is merely to serve as a location to make occasional system images of the primary 500 GB drive. Every month or so I'll copy the image to another isolated location so I can minimize how much data I'd lose if bad things happen.
I created a spreadsheet (using OpenOffice) to work through how much space my time lapse video would require. If I assume 1,250 hours of building (probably too low), at one image every 10 seconds, that's 450k images. The typical image size is 390 kB at the compression I've set. This gives 171.39 GB of images. With a frame rate of 0.03 s/frame (lowest Microsoft Movie Maker will go), that leads to a 3.75 hour movie.
Total computer cost: $531.31
Update 7-Jan-18: This computer served its purpose well. It has been re-purposed and now is in the employ of my mother, allowing her to surf to the web comfortably.
Update 17-Feb-18: The time lapse video of the build which I made for myself (not publicly shared) is composed of exactly 468,829 files occupying 223 GB of disk space and 576 folders (each folder represents the files from one day of work). That captured 1,953 hours of the the 2,196 hours of building. Thus the time lapse endeavor documented via video 88.9% of the build.
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