Sony Pictures Home Entertainment (SPHE) is going to be the first major Hollywood studio to distribute Blu-ray movies in China.

The movie studio plans to sell only 30 movie titles on the Chinese market, with titles including Hitch, Kung Fu Hustle, Hancock and Close Encounters Of The Third Kind, and the Spiderman trilogy.

The movies will be available for 205 yuan, or ~$30 each, which is a high amount considering the low income among many citizens in China.

Sony will launch the BDP-S350 Blu-ray player in China on Nov. 21, and may expand its Blu-ray product lineup later.

Warner Bros. and Disney are expected to launch Blu-ray movies in the near future, with other movie studios still weighing their options. Most studios plan to wait and see how consumers like Sony's lineup, and how the company battles piracy, before mass releasing movies.

Despite Chinese pirates already manipulating Blu-ray movies and selling counterfeit movies to consumers, there will likely be a strong push to try and legitimize the Blu-ray market in China. The pirated movies aren't Blu-ray, but are AVCHD-quality movies pirated on to DVDs.

AVCHD discs can be made using regular blank DVDs but are playable in Blu-ray players -- and movie studios are extremely concerned about AVCHD movies being pirated and sold as Blu-ray movies.The Motion Picture Association fears AVCHDs will account for as much as 10 percent of all pirated movies in China within six months, as the number continues to grow.

If Sony is able to combat pirates and convince Chinese consumers to purchase legal Blu-ray movies, then it will create local production facilities in several locations.

Assuming Sony and other movie studios are serious about releasing Blu-ray in China, they're likely going to have to reduce the cost of Blu-ray movies, or consumers will continue to pirate content.

Just over two months after introducing the first Chrome 400-series graphics card, S3 has added a new, faster variant to its lineup. From the outside, the new Chrome 440 GTX doesn't look very different from the Chrome 430 GT, with the same low-profile design and cooler. The two cards' GPUs are both 65nm, DirectX 10.1-capable parts with the ability to decode 1080p Blu-ray video.

However, S3 has outfitted the Chrome 440 GTX with GDDR3 RAM, and it claims the new card offers higher overall performance than the DDR2-powered 430 GT. A chart on its website shows the newcomer yielding a 15% greater score than AMD's Radeon HD 3470 in 3DMark06 onWindows Vista. For reference, S3 claims its Chrome 430 GT outperforms the slower Radeon HD 3450 by 20% or so in the same benchmark.

S3 has opted to price the Chrome 440 GTX at only $69, making it just $10 pricier than the 430 GT. That's also about $10 more expensive than the Radeon HD 3470, a Sapphire-built version of which can be had for $59.99 on Newegg. The 3470 has passive cooling, although it doesn't have a low-profile circuit board design.

Paired with CyberLink’s PowerDVD BD Edition software, the latest player will allow playback of commercial movie titles, recorded Blu-ray Disc home videos, DVD-ROMs and CD-ROMs. In addition, it can also play recorded Blu-ray Discs in MPEG-2 or H.264 format, standard DVD-Video discs or recorded DVDs encoded with MPEG-2 or AVCHD formats.

Users will notice fast and easy transfer of data and videos while using high-speed Serial ATA (SATA) interface, thanks to the internal drive. The 2.5-inch device also supports Microsoft Windows Vista or XP operating system and delivers easy installation in desktop PCs.

Moreover, you can also play commercial Blu-ray movies on the PC that features an HDCP-compliant graphics card offering DVI or HDMI connections, HDCP-compliant computer display, and software that supports BD-ROM playback. You can even view personally created Blu-ray content. The other features are 8x DVD ROM (Read Only), 24X CD-ROM (Read Only), Data Buffer size of 4MB, physical dimension of 5.25″x1.63″x7.0″ and installation angle supporting both Vertical and Horizontal.Currently available in India via Rashi Peripherals, the Sony BDU-X10S Blu-ray Disc ROM Drive costs Rs. 16,950 and is backed with a one-year warranty.

Dell is offering a Blu-ray laptop, the Inspiron 1525, for under $1000.Available from today on dell.com, movie buffs can pick up the laptop with optional Blu-ray disc playback starting at $879.

The Inspiron 1525 laptop features a 15.4-inch high definition wide aspect display with 720p resolution. It also includes an HDMI port for easy connectivity to high resolution displays and HDTVs.

The Blu-ray player disc drive is fully backwards compatible, and will play as well as burn traditional DVDs and CDs. Consumers can also choose a Blu-ray burner drive for backing up and storing important files like digital photos, videos, financial records, etc. A Blu-ray disc can hold up to 50 GB of data, vs. 8.5 GB available on the typical DVD disc.

The Inspiron 1525 offers designs like Chill, Blossom and Commotion, in colors like Sunshine Yellow, Midnight Blue and Ruby Red.Dell Inspiron 1525 laptops with Blu-ray disc drives incorporate Broadcom Media PC technology that allows PCs with integrated graphics to play high definition video. The high-definition video playback is enabled through a built-in dedicated accelerator located in a mini-card slot.

The Inspiron 1525 features Dell MediaDirect technology, which provides one button instant access to media files, even if the system is powered off or in hibernation mode. Optional accessories include a slim travel power adapter ($80), Dell travel remote control that slips into the ExpressCard slot ($22), and Creative noise-isolation earphones ($25).

As of now the Inspiron 1525 laptop with Blu-ray is in the U.S., Canada and Europe, but let's hope with the tie-up with Croma we get to see this laptop here pretty soon.