All Hail the Christmas Light Hero

Since I just got burned with that Lost “promo,” I’m a little worried about assuming this video is 100% real, but… hell, it’s the holidays. And this is a particularly awesome idea. And the dude sounds like he’s not making it up when he described it to Makezine:

Christmas Light Hero is using 7 light controllers from
Light-O-Rama built from kits to control 21,268 lights and LEDs. Each
controller has 16 outputs and 2-3 TTL level control inputs that are
used by the game system to fire different programmed light sequences
depending on what happens in the game. It relies on the fact that the
game sequence is very consistent. If the game and the lighting
sequences start together, they will stay in very good sync through the
length of the song. The light program allows branching and overlays for
fail, star power and “ready.” I have some ideas to automate the initial
show/game sync, but for now you have to push doorbell buttons at the
right moments.

To program the show a video recording was made of a perfect round of
Guitar Hero playing Eric Johnson’s Cliffs of Dover. The timing of all
the dots and the light show choreography follow that video.

When you play, you watch only the Christmas lights, but the audio
you hear is from the Wii, so your flubs are broadcast for all to hear
(people in cars can tune 99.1 and crank it up as loud as they want.)
When we are not playing, a separate version of the program that has the
audio from the recorded game plays with the lights as a loop. The
YouTube video also has this audio, (because I forgot to record the
direct audio when I was shooting the documentation, and the camcorder
did not pick it up very well.)

A video screen is on the driveway showing the game video, but if you
want to be on the high score list you have to make it through the whole
game only watching the Christmas Lights. Even though the game is in
“easy” mode, the lights don’t provide the same timing detail as the
game does, so it is much harder. Even expert Guitar Hero players have a
hard time with the lights, and nobody has made it through without
errors (yet).

I’m trying to decide if my embarrassment at possibly fucking up for the whole neighborhood to hear would be conquered by my drinking. I’d probably need to drink a bit more than usual in order to play outside in the cold anyways. Hmm. Thanks to Kelby for the tip!