I do have a fairly poor quality video I took from inside my car last winter. I can't access YouTube here at work, so I'll have to grab the link later. I warn you, it's very basic compared to most who do this hobby, but I enjoy it. This years is really bad because I'm in a rental waiting for our new house, so most of my stuff is in boxes. I just grabbed an assortment of stuff and threw it out there, no planning.
If you want the "easy button", most of the big box stores sell systems that are preloaded with everything so you just hang the lights, plug it in and they dance. Obviously, your stuck with whatever songs and dance pattern is preset, but it's better than nothing. If you want to DIY, here's the initial outlay... A controller is about $200. They go on sale sometimes and if you're relatively handy you can buy it in kit form and assemble it to save a few bucks. That controller is 16 channels. Each "channel" is one outlet that you plug the lights into. So for instance, you could surround a window with lights and that's one channel, the window next to it is another, the second floor window is channel 3, etc... If you use the incandescent light strings Wal-Mart sells they run $2.50 for 100 lights, or you can get them 50-90% off after Christmas. Downside is they use electricity. About .33 amps each strand. You can use LEDs instead, which cost more...about $4/box (again, get 'em after Christmas on sale), they only use .02 amps each strand. I was using almost all incans in my last house, and if all lights were on at once I drew about 55 amps. I hit the stores hard after Xmas and have now mostly converted to LED.
From there, you use the computer software to sequence your song, the license is around $100. Basically, you tell the channels to turn off and on, or fade to black, or twinkle, etc...that's how you get them to dance. You'll also need an FM transmitter to broacast the music ($30 on Ebay) and a computer to run the show. Oh yeah, extension cords too. I make my own from SPT wire.
From there, it's a slippery cost slope, just like cars. You can get into RGBs, which is what I'm dipping my toe into now. Those are the ones that can change colors, and all kinds of things you can build and do with them...think 20' tree made of lights where each bulb can change colors. You can do a million different things, including scroll text across it. That gets really expensive. Plus building all kinds of props, etc...
But start small if you're going to DIY. My first year I had just one controller. Hell, I only have two now. Like I said, if you do some windows, bushes and the trees, you'll use up all your channels and it'll look great.
