Analog vs digital – who will prevail? – red and white banners above two dancers on opposite sides of a boxing ring, one in an LED suit with blue analog LED segments, the other in a suit covered in multicolored pixel LEDs, with a red “VS” between them

Analog vs. digital suits

Hello everyone,

In this blog, we will speak about digital and analog LED suits. Even though the digital costumes can really look better, at first sight, we do have clear reasons why we use LED analog strips.

Why should you buy Tron LED Dance Suits? – plays from YouTube or Vimeo once you press play

Here are some technical analyses of analog and digital strips:

Table comparing analog and digital LED strips: colors, control on hardware level (DMX or SPI), typical user control, voltage, LEDs per meter, cut segment, typical usage, installation, current per meter and control with LED Strip Studio

What is the main difference between these two types of suits?

The main and obvious reason is visualization. Digital costumes look much nicer because you can see “more colors and LED strips on them” or actually just play any video that you have in your PC. It’s because you can control each pixel on the suit. On the other hand, with an analog suit, you can control “just” one segment. It can be one LED (as we use on Tron Girls costume) or more LED strips that are connected into one segment (Tron Dance costume).

Tron Girls costume – a dancer with a long braided ponytail and neon UV make-up in a black suit outlined with glowing pink lines, with neon green sleeves and thigh bands
Tron Dance costume – a dancer in a dark suit with blue LED segments on the head, chest, arms, legs and shoes
Picture 1 – Tron Girls and Tron Dance suits

Now, you are asking why it’s better to buy analog suits when digital costumes are nicer?

Let’s look at the disadvantages of digital costumes:
– the more time-consuming process to program digital costumes
– dancers are more limited in dancing (due to bigger space necessary for LED strips)
– price is double compared to analog costumes

It’s really general but for the majority of the dance groups that don’t have anyone who is able to work with hardware, it is just easier to work with analog costumes. You can program them faster, they are cheaper to make and maintain, and dancers can move better.

Personally, I have seen this problem in many LED groups that dance in digital suits. They practically don’t move. Even some of them need to be connected with ethernet to the PC during the show. You can rather perform your piece in front of the LED wall and you don’t need to construct a suit for that. I can’t even imagine how they can do the shows like that but they still do it.

Have you come across some similar problems or do you have a different opinion? Feel free to contact me and we can discuss it. Text me here.