I have an issue with LED panels in a Christmas light show

Shows consisting primarily of panels, fall in to the same category as whole house projection to me.

I've seen displays consisting primarily of panels, and the show just looks like someone has bought a stack of TV's and put them up.

That said, I plan of getting a panel up next year myself, and I've seen plenty of displays that have panels in them that look really great.
 
I partially agree about matrixes, but this could also be said of of any 2D display just using pixels. Adding a few 3 dimensional things like reindeer, led cherry trees etc stop a display looking like a big, cheap, movie screen imo.

Personally I'm actually excited at including as many 2 wire led strings this year as I can (courtesy of AH's DC2-30 controller) to take the edge off all the hard & bright pixel lighting, hoping to give my lights a softer, more nostalgic feeling.

But each to there own, everyones' idea of good entertainment is different and for some it's obviously a technical/financial race to to the top, losing the spirit of christmas lighting on the way.
 
ryanschristmaslights said:
But what exactly is a matrix and who said it had to be a 2D square or rectangle array of LEDs? A pixel mega tree could also act as a matrix, right? Except my mega tree is made with shop-bought LED strings (and getting on 10-12 years old!). So where is this matrix then?
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I actually saw a video this morning that had around 30 or so mini pixel trees lined up side by side and they ran a sequence over the whole thing which made it work like a matrix, so that is very relevant.
LawrenceDriveLights said:
Well I personally like flame throwers and glitter cannons are they “allowed” in a xmas light display :)
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There was a bloke that used flame throwers a few years back. I saw a sequence to acdc, it was kind of wild.
But glitter canons could get rather messy and expensive I would think o_O
 
denno020 said:
For people who do use them, is there ever the feeling of taking a shortcut by using them?
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I'd say Panels actually make it harder to do properly. It's another surface that needs to be sequenced - or more specifically: animated.

For music video's - yes that can be quicker fix - but then you're sequencing against video instead of just audio. Done well; you can animate your lights against the visual content, be it colours or to mimicking the video's own transitions/effects with your lights.


Now I have an issue with people dropping the pinwheel effect on the whole house preview and calling it a day! :p
 
I like my P5 and P10 panels, and I have 7 of them. Not 7 individual panels in total, but 7 separate screens (well 8 if you count one that's double sided as 2). Each is used for a different thing.

2/3 (8 total P5 panels) are used for tune to information - they display JUST the FM frequency
1 (5 total P5 panels) is inside Hyphey, a very unique item in the display, and usually display things like the tune to frequency, but he also has a sense of humor - you just have to watch out for it
2 (18 P5 panels total) are my old tune to signs, and display a mix of tune to, info about our facebook page and website, our charity, and the occasional singing face. Except the frequency, none of this could easily be displayed using traditional means
2 (50 P10 panels total) are main screens, used to announce the songs, occasionally as a tune to and charity display, but are mainly used for images, videos and occasional effects that compliment the song that's being displayed, again nothing here could be easily shown in any other way

Why so many screens - I'm on a corner block and this works well for people viewing from both directions.

Now if you don't like LED screens, don't use them
If you don't like RGB LED's use incandescent lights or single color LED's
Don't like store-bought or shared sequences, sequence your own
Don't like Gay marriage, then don't marry someone of the same sex
If you don't like non-traditional music, then sequence music you like

Whatever your choices, it's not up to you to criticise what others do, but you are allowed to have an opinion even if it differs to others here.
 
lithgowlights said:
Now if you don't like LED screens, don't use them
If you don't like RGB LED's use incandescent lights or single color LED's
Don't like store-bought or shared sequences, sequence your own
Don't like Gay marriage, then don't marry someone of the same sex
If you don't like non-traditional music, then sequence music you like
Click to expand...

A big PLUS 1 to that. :)
 
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