Costco blog/discussion forum

You probably have heard of HD television, but how about HD radio? Of course, there is satellite radio, but you have to pay a subscription fee for that. HD radio is free and probably already available in your area.

Costco warehouses are now selling the Dice Electronics HD Radio Receiver(Costco Item #233826, $99.99 in July 2008). This receiver is a tabletop radio. It features 10 preset stations, a clock, headphone output jack, an optional speaker output, and an audio input (you can use it as a speaker for your iPOD). The manual is available online.

Broadcasting digitally, AM stations sound like FM stations, and FM stations sound like CDs. HD also gives FM stations the option of broadcasting multiple simultaneous channels. So stations like KROQ-FM (106.7 FM) in Los Angeles, can have their regular (analog) broadcast (alternative music, for KROQ) on the main channel and 80's music on the 2nd channel.

Broadcasters also can send text information that will appear on your radio, for music stations this is typically the artist name and song title. For news stations this may be stock quotes or traffic reports.

Costco is offering a good price on this item. The Dice Electronics iTR-100 is selling for $99.99 in the warehouses, but if you buy it direct online from Dice it will cost $149.99. As with all new technologies, the price on this will probably drop significantly over the next year or two. Of course, with the Costco return policy you could always return it, if you are not satisfied.

I previously wrote about the Sceptre 32 1080p. This finally went on sale on July 14th. I ordered it that Saturday. It was shipped on Monday from Ontario, California and we received it on Tuesday (in Southern California, about 50 miles from where it was shipped).

So, this highly anticipated TV/monitor arrived looking good. It was packaged well, it included a detailed manual along with a quick setup guide. It took me about 15 minutes to get it out of the package and mounted on the stand. You need to screw in eight screws to attach the stand to the TV. They even give you a screwdriver, so you won't need any tools.

After setting it up, I powered it on and, well, nothing. I couldn't get a picture. I tried various inputs, reading the manual, etc, and I can not get anything to display on the monitor. I can't even see the "on screen menu". Nothing. It definitely has power. A red LED lights up when it is connected to power. After I press "on", the red LED flashes blue for a few seconds and then gives a steady blue color, indicating it is on and I can see the backlight flashing on momentarily, but I never see anything displayed on the monitor.

So, back to Costco it goes. Thanks for the great return policy Costco! I believe this may have been a fluke, and I am considering purchasing another one, but I'm going to have to decide quickly since the sale ends in a few days.

Costco warehouses and costco.com have a great deal on a digital picture frame, but I think you should pass it up.

A digital picture frame seems like a great idea at first, then you realize that it must be plugged in to work. This rules out mounting it on any wall.

The Pandigital 7.0" LCD Digital Photo Multi Frame Collage (Costco item #286024, Pandigital model number PAN7004MU01) is selling for $89.99 which includes a $40 manufacturer's instant rebate. (If you buy through Costco.com, they will add shipping costs, which is about $10 for me.) This $40 off deal is good from June 2, 2008 to June 15, 2008. For comparison, you can buy the same product from amazon.com for $130 and from Sears for $50.

This digital picture frame includes a 128 MB internal memory, a memory card reader, and also has two 4x6 frames and one 5x7 frame for printed photos. The biggest drawback for this digital picture frame is the resolution of the 7 inch LCD screen. It only displays 480 x 234 pixels. Any picture displayed on a 7 inch screen is going to look like a postage stamp that was xeroxed at 400% zoom. It just cannot look that good.

Previously, costco.com was offering this same product for $99.99, which included a $30 off manufacturers instant rebate. This was effective from May 15, 2008 to June 1, 2008. It looks to me that this product is being liquidated. If you really have to have it, a better price will probably come along. If you are interested in quality, shop around or wait until the next model from Pandigital is released.

See my update here.

If you read all the recommendations about buying a high definition television (HDTV), one common thread is that you don't need full 1080p resolution if the screen is smaller than about 50 inches. Here's one of the best .

Costco.com will sell a 32 inch 1080p LCD HDTV manufactured by Sceptre (Costco item number #290311) this summer. So why am I interested in a 32 inch 1080p set, if I won't be able to see the extra resolution watching TV? I want to use it both as a computer monitor and TV.

According to the limited information available, this set will have a resolution of 1920x1080, 2 HDMI inputs, and ATSC/NTSC/QAM tuners.

It is will be available at Costco.com only, and it is scheduled to be on sale from July 14-20, 2008. The sale price is $650 plus shipping and handling, which should be about $50.00.

Unfortunately, this TV is not yet listed on the Costco.com website, and I can't find any information on the Sceptre web site about it either.

Sceptre is not a well known brand, but they have been around a while. Headquartered in City of Industry, California, they started selling OEM LCD monitors in 1993. You may very well have already owned a Sceptre manufactured monitor, but it had a different brand on it. They are now trying to establish their own brand in the HDTV market.

This is one product that I can't say much about, but I'm looking forward to purchasing it. If it doesn't work out, I'll just return it to Costco within 90 days and get my money back.

If you have a digital camera and hate hooking it up to your computer to download the photos, Costco.com has the solution for you. It's called the Eye-Fi 2GB SD card (Costco Item #253191).

This is how it works. You plug this in your camera, just like any other SD card. Your camera thinks it is a 2GB SD card and acts just like it always did. When your camera is on and in range of your wireless network, your photos are automatically uploaded to a website (it could be Costco Photo Center, Facebook, Shutterfly, Smugmug, Walmart, Picasa, Kodak Gallery, or PhanFare for example). Before you first use it, you have to configure some things on your home computer. But once it is set up, just shoot photos and they will appear online. Your home computer will also get a copy of the photos.

This is a new product, and there are some problems. The biggest one seems to be that you have to delete these photos from your 2 GB SD card. Of course, you don't want to delete them until you are sure that they have been properly transfered. So, you have to go look on your computer and compare one by one the photos on your computer with the photos on your camera. Another problem is that it only transfers jpg images. If you like to shoot movies with your digital camera, they will remain on the card and you will have to transfer them the old way.

If you are in the market for a wireless router, and you head to your local Costco Warehouse, you won't find a huge selection. My warehouse only carries the Dlink Xtreme Gigabit DIR-655 wireless router (Costco item number 193683). Don't worry, it is an excellent choice at a good price. You can see the detailed description at D-Link. Among the features I found most useful are the Quality of Service (QoS) engine and the port filter scheduling.

In order to remotely monitor our home, I hooked up the Panasonic BL C131A Network Camera Wireless (not available at Costco). However, when the camera was being accessed, our home network became bogged down, making normal web access painfully slow. Also, for privacy reasons, I wanted to make sure no one could access the camera outside of regular working hours, (when I'm home!). The DIR-665 solved both of these problems. I changed the QoS setting for the camera to be a lower priority than normal web browsing, and I only opened the port that the camera uses from 9-5 Monday through Friday.

I did some comparison shopping, and as of May 2008 these were the prices I found for the Dlink DIR-665:

Price $114.99 at my local warehouse
$119.99 at costco.com (free shipping)
$117.99 at amazon.com (free shipping)

$119.99 at newegg.com (free shipping)

Everyone should have a widescreen monitor these days. Costco has some great deals on them. A few months ago, the Costco coupon book had a $30 off coupon for the Samsung 2220WM 22 inch widescreen monitor with integrated speakers. It has a fast response time of 5ms, 1000:1 contrast ratio, 1680 x 1050 maximum resolution. At my local Costco this monitor (Costco item number 292220) sells for $279.99. So, I got it for $249.99.

I just compared this to prices on Amazon, and found that Samsung has released a new model to replace this one.
The differences between the old model 2220WM and the new model 220WM seem imperceptible. The new model, 220WM, is available at Amazon for $267, they also have a $30 mail in rebate.