I was just looking at them again, and released how much space you can fill up very effectively, something you just can't do unless you have a trump sized wallet.
Some people bang on about how the price per LED is not much more for pixels once you take the DC controller channels (vs a single pixel output) into account, but it's really not that simple.
Non-pixel strings are still used to great effect in displays. Yes, you can emulate them using pixels but every time I look at replacing my simple strings with pixels the cost is still huge.
The other nice thing about simple DC strings is that the cabling is much more forgiving. No null nodes, special attention to power and data, etc to worry about.
Don't get me wrong though, I absolutely love some of the displays that are 100% RGB pixels. It's just something that I want to do at the moment.
It would be a pretty boring hobby if everyone used exactly the same type of lights.
i'm actually thinking that it might just be time to go back to use some old school, in combination with the new school. Some creative thinking might create somethign thats truely impressive.
The majority of my display is store-bought lights with DC controllers. This was originally because it used to be a static display but I like the way the store-bought setup turned out when computer control was introduced. I agree that the light sets fill up plenty of space and their light is nice and festive. There are even some incandescent light sets still hanging around. That said, pixels are great and I use them for feature items. Their brighter light makes them stand out.
Mixture of Rope light, Big W Strings and RGB on the Mega-Tree. Will integrate Strobes next year. I think the imperfect lines of strings make a display feel homely and a little friendlier, if that makes any sense.
Steve
List: Strobes, Singing trees, more wire frame stars and a talking snowman.
When I did my house a lot of it was actually just dumb RGB and was not pixels, this saved me a lot of money but when used in conjunction with pixels this gave the effect of the whole house being done to pixels.