yeah to be fair when Ive had the 360 vs PS3 argument in the past even most of the PS3 fans admitted the 360 won on that front!

Both consoles far outstrip the spec of the formats theyre playing.  If youre getting pixely output from either then somethings wrong.  Regardless if youre watching it on a 52" screen.

I use both regularly on a wide range of panels with no issues.  Buying a non PS3 Bluray player is a truly stupid move (unless its a main brand machine with updatable firmware and lots of spare processing).  The bluray spec is not yet finalized.  The Bluray spec manual itself is £2k+ a year rent and is constantly changing.

The HD-DVD spec is essentially fixed and the XBox 360 far exceeds the spec needed to play it back.

Its true what SteveF says, for the time being the PS3 is probably the best Blu player in terms of price, quality, compatibility and updatability. Lots of people are getting them in from America to take advantage of US releases and region coding.

That is another annoying thing, why are companies picking this when region free hd-dvd is such a great concept, most of the time prices are fixed roughly the same globally now and its only a good thing anyway

PS3/Xbox360 ... horses for courses!

They both have their pros and cons.  PS3 will in time become a great if not better console than the 360.  I think its similar to the old PS2 vs xbox 1 scenario.  PS2 came out first, fanbase came in, xbox came out later, better console, better titles, but popularity still went with the PS2.  Roles have reversed and the same is now for the 360.  The thing is that by the time the PS3 gets enough titles out there it will no doubt be too late as the given the price of a 360 is so incredibly cheap its once again smashing the market in terms of sales.  Not disputing that the PS3 is a bad console, I just think they left it too late.  

Blu-ray ... yeah, PS3 wins hands down, even on the AV forums etc, the PS3 is the blu-ray brick of choice but I have to say, when the fans kick in midway through as its got a little too hot, it is a tad annoying.  Buy one if the films thing really matters, but tbh, I have a media center pc and I could always hook in a blu-ray into that if I wanted.

Would comment on live, but again that would be on what I have heard rather than what I have seen.

I would also wait if you was to go PS3 as there is a slim version due out at some stage.  Not sure of spec though.  

I have to admit that I have played loads on both.  TBH, I find the 360 just to have a lot of great titles, and the PS3 have a select few.  I also have a mate who is convinced that the PS3 graphics in all games available on both formats is much much better than the 360?!?!  I have played both on several different panels and to be honest I really cannot tell the difference.  Its another one of those annoying tits who base their info on what they have read rather than what they have seen.  What I do know, is they both look pretty amazing and again saving £100 on initial purchase, can well a truly go on some titles.  A mate of mine just bought a PS3 at the weekend and having come out of game with 2 controllers, 4 games and a PS3 (40GB), it all came to about £440 ... my god!!!  The titles only included one new and top release, the rest were older titles.  Thats like buying a 360 and having £240 to spend on games ....