FYI, you can add IR capability w/ something like this:
IR2BT - InfraRed to BlueTooth Converter for the PS3
It's a bit pricy, but sounds nice. For an inexpensive solution, you can also get the Bluwave(?) remote which provides an IR-to-USB dongle, but it doesn't provide power on/off function nor a few other useful ones. You can buy the latter from Amazon for ~$15 or so.
As for movie playback, other than that the PS3 does poorly on the Secrets' progressive scan DVD benchmark tests, it seems to be a wonderful player in general. Personally, like many others here, I'm a bit skeptical about the usefulness of the Secrets' results for the PS3 even though many of us used to depend heavily on them for this -- it really does seem like the test results don't match what we see/observe in actual practice in this particular case.
Well, as w/ any player though, there will always be certain things that don't quite suit certain people. For instance, the PS3 doesn't provide multi-channel analog audio output and cannot bitstream Dolby TrueHD and DTS-HD/MA. It doesn't scale non-anamorphic DVDs (though it does provide 4x3 pillarboxing). It doesn't offer built-in IR remote capability though that can be addressed w/ 3rd party solutions. It doesn't provide its own front panel display, which might be important if/when you use it for audio only playback.
Of course, the PS3 does also come w/ more than its fair share of bonus features, etc. that other standalone players do not.
Having built-in WiFi connectivity is nice for one, especially if you intend to make use of BD-Live (or even just for firmware/software updates). Along those lines, the PS3 also provides a rudimentary web browser that you might find useful on occasion. Some also use it to stream music, photos and videos from another computer -- and it can of course keep its own storage of such too...
_Man_
