• Animated Lighting
• D-Light
• Light-O-Rama

Computer controlling your display with these off-the-shelf products will cost $10-25 per channel.  The lighting controllers usually come packaged to handle four, eight or sixteen channels and you can put as many lights as you want on a channel up to the current limit of the controller.  Each channel has dimming capabilities plus other special effects that will easily wow your neighbors.

These companies are now offering package deals with discounts.  If you want to get started fast, this is the way to go!  Checkout their websites and ask questions.  Each vendor has an active user community willing to help if you have problems or just searching for ideas.

But:

A word to the wise.  Refrain from going to the PlanetChristmas forums and throwing out the general question of "which computer lighting system is better?"  It's like asking "which car should I buy?"  Every person has an opinion and passions run deep.  You have a unique set of challenges and each vendor will address them differently.  Only you can invest the time, know what you want to accomplish and spend the money.

The most important thing to know:

A computer will end up running your display. 

You're reading this webpage on a computer.  Ever remember having an overwhelming desire to pick up your computer and throw it through a window because it wouldn't do what you really wanted (be honest... we've all been there.)

Computerizing your display is simple in concept but complicated in execution.  The vendors have done a good job removing you from the complexities of knowing how to dim/flash a string of lights.  There's still the challenge of connecting everything to the computer and mastering how to tell the computer the way you want the lights to blink.

Synchronizing the lights to music isn't too hard to understand.  You can imagine a large grid where the x-axis (left to right) represents points in time and the y-axis (up and down) represents different lighting channels.  Each square in the grid represents a channel at a specific time.  In that square you tell the computer what you want the light channel to do (say ramp to 75% brightness and stay there until the next command).  A typical song is three minutes long or 180 seconds.  If you wanted something to happen every ten seconds, there would be 18 points in time (180/10) to control.  If you had 16 light channels, that means there are (18x16=) 288 different places you could control the lights. 

The problem with computerized Christmas lights is once you get started with a few channels, you can't stop.  There are many hobbyist out there with over 500 lighting channels.  Using the above example of a three minute song, you end up with (18x500=) 9,000 different places to control the lights.  In some songs lights will be changing a lot more often than every 10 seconds, perhaps on each beat.  Soon you fall into a black hole of time.  I've been there.  Don't forget you need to synchronize multiple tunes so you have an entire show.

Are there any rules of thumb for the time required to synchronize lights to music?  Nope.  For eight light channels it might average an hour of your time for each minute of song length.  For 500 light channels it could average a couple of days for each minute of song length... or not.  It has a lot to do with how good you are with computers and if you have a musical background.

Getting depressed yet?  Not so fast!  Most of the vendors have "pre-sequenced" tunes available.  They have totally removed the need for any ultra-geek.  You don't have the ultimate control over how your lights dance, but for most, it's good enough.

So... to get back to the most important thing to know: a computer is still running your display.  The real trick is to order a small system from one of the vendors right now... just 8-16 light control channels.  Setup a dedicated workspace for your new project in the comfort of your home.  Hook the controllers to the computer and plug a set of mini-lights into each light controller channel.  Take the time to learn the fundamental concepts as required by each vendor.  When you can make those strings of lights dance, you're ready to create a display for outdoors.  You'll know what to do when something goes wrong and not go into a panic requiring a call the vendor the night after Thanksgiving when every other newbie is begging for help.

Ready?  This is actually fun once you get started.  Checkout the vendors and get to work!

Set!

• Animated Lighting
• D-Light
• Light-O-Rama

Go!