Such is the case with Joost’s new video player, designed with the Playstation 3’s Web browser in mind. While it’s good for watching music videos and promotional television clips, Destructoid says Viacom, Warner Bros. and CBS content isn’t available (so, no Ren & Stimpy). CBS imposes similar limitations on YouTube XL, a viewer optimized for television.

The optimized Joost viewer, accessible through labs.joost.com/tv, arranges navigation in a manner similar to YouTube XL. It even turns the PS3 controller into a remote by mapping useful functions to the buttons. Destructoid tried it out and said the video quality looks “just below standard definition” on a 720p monitor. Too bad there’s no television to watch.

Like Hulu, it’s been possible to access Joost through the PS3’s browser since October, when the console updated to include Flash 9. Still, there’s no easy way to go full screen. You can zoom in the browser to fit the video frame, but that compromises video quality. And of course, mapping playback to the PS3 controller is out of the question.

Joost’s full content library, I assume, is still available through the PS3 in non-optimized form, making it just a little more inconvenient to watch. If anyone’s got a PS3 and wants to give the old way a try, I’d be interested to hear the results. But I can’t be responsible for any effects Ren & Stimpy might have on your sanity.

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There appears to be a world domination plot afoot with Nintendo’s “Wii no Ma” video service, which will launch next week in Japan.

Until now, details on the service were slim, other than an announced partnership between Nintendo and media giant Dentsu to produce original content. The full scoop, revealed on Nintendo’s Japanese Web site and conveniently translated by Andria Sang, talks of a virtual world that blends eerily with the real.

The channel places Mii characters in a living room, where time passes by in equal proportion to the outside world. This is the hub for various other services offered in the channel. Foremost is the video channel, providing paid and ad-supported shows, as previously reported. Partner companies will have their own content, accessed by clicking on a plant in the room, as well as product samples that can be delivered to a pre-entered real world address. Weirder still, celebrities will occasionally visit the virtual home as “concierges” peddling additional programming.

In addition, DSi owners will be able to sync the handheld to the channel and download virtual coupons, which can be redeemed at participating retailers.

This is all pretty wild stuff — sort of like Second Life, but much more restrained — and you have to wonder how much of it, if any, will make it out of Japan. I can see the original content coming west, as it allows Nintendo to bypass the licensing kerfuffles that are making a mess of existing online video sites. And the delivery system is smart, drawing families in with another channel for their Miis.

But samples in the mail? Celebrity avatars invading your virtual home? They could be failures stateside, or Nintendo could strike gold again. I won’t venture a prediction.

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Using an advanced authentication method, NBC Universal will require online viewers to prove that they subscribe to a cable, satellite or telecom subscription TV package. Even then, the customer’s service provider must agree to this deal with NBC Universal beforehand.

The report in Sports Business Journal says the authentication will be limited to live footage, while some archived footage will be available for free.

Though much of NBC’s coverage will appear over the airwaves (free to anyone with an HD tuner and antenna), the paywall is probably meant to placate service providers due to the coverage NBC spreads to its subscription channels, such as MSNBC. Without being privy to the interactions between the network and service providers, I can’t say outright that authentication is a boneheaded move on NBC’s part. It could just be a necessity in the crazy world of content licensing.

But there should be some option for non-subscribers to watch the games online, and it should be robust rather than a second-class medium. Look at what Major League Baseball is doing with its MLB.tv offerings: Picture-in-picture, live highlights, DVR, player tracking. These are luxuries that go far beyond what the TV can do, and in my opinion, they’re worth paying for.

Give me a menu of which games are happening right now, and let me open a few of them in separate frames. Give me reminders of when the next Curling match is set to air and let me watch later if I miss it. I want a clickable ticker packed with highlights from around Vancouver. Please don’t give me the same thing I could get on cable, but harder to watch. As a cable divorcee, I’d throw $20 on this hypothetical service for the duration of the games.

But these are fantasies, to be sure. Maybe NBC Universal will learn after it endures another year of subpar viewing numbers.

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Odds are most of your TV watching still occurs in comfort of your living room with your TV set. But increasingly, consumers are watching video anywhere they can: from work on the PC, on the road from a laptop, on iPods and iPhones, and other portable media players.

Even the term watching TV can be misconstrued, since there are so many options today. Does it mean watching a live broadcast TV channel as it is being aired? Does it mean viewing a show on-demand from your DVR? Does it mean buying the latest Daily Show episode from iTunes and watching it on your iPhone during your morning commute? Or maybe you’d rather go to NBC.com and watch the full episodes of Heroes for free (with limited commercials, of course).

I’ve recently been thinking about an old phrase from the early days of Internet video: Lean forward vs. sit back. Essentially, it’s the difference between PCs and TVs. PCs are more interactive while TVs are a passive experience. Lots of companies I spoke to back then were interested in the future of television and interactive TV services and wanted to blur the lines between PCs and TVs.

Not much has changed today; I believe that the PC-vs.-TV contrast still holds true. According to ComScore Networks’ Video Metrix service, the duration of an average online video was just three minutes. By comparison, most TV shows are 30 to 60 minutes, and movies are even longer than that.

So why is there such a gap? Lean back vs. sit forward. People are multi-tasking on their PCs, and can only take short breaks. So a three minute online video is the perfect break for someone that’s been crunching numbers on a spreadsheet all morning. Think about the last Internet video clip you watched and try to remember how long it was. Thirty seconds? A minute? Odds are it was a lot shorter than half an hour, even though thirty minutes is considered short on traditional TV.

This morning I tried an xperiment. I went to NBC.com and tried to watch the latest full episode of Heroes online. I figured that watching a professionally produced TV show, rather than some random user-generated video would make the experience more compelling (not to mention longer).

As I sat down to watch, I quickly realized that my office chair is comfortable, but it’s not great for relaxing, especially for long periods of time. After only a few minutes my attention started to wander. I began thinking about work. Then a phone call interrupted me. An instant message. Facebook. E-mail. Digg. Finally, I cracked and started fully multi-tasking as I watched the show.

After a few minutes, I was concentrating too much on typing and writing, and not paying attention to what was happening on the show. I realized I was paying much more attention to the sound of the show, rather than the video, since I was looking at my work, not the video screen. (No wonder I prefer to listen to music while I work, rather than watch TV.) So I abandoned my experiment after just a few minutes.

When I watch TV in the living room I’m more apt to give it my full attention. There’s nothing in the way to distract me, and thus, I can sit back and watch longer shows. There’s no keyboard, no mouse, no Microsoft Office or browser staring back at me. In fact, on the TV screen I find that I don’t want any interruptions. One of the main reasons why I use TiVo is because I can fast-forward through commercials and compress a half hour long show into about 22 minutes.

So the primary difference between TV and PC is the location. PCs are not usually found in living rooms, but in a separate room like an office. PCs are also usually tucked away into a corner of a room, not like a TV standing tall and proud for all to see in the middle of the living room. Also, the primary purpose of a TV is to do nothing except give us TV programming. PCs are a bit more complex and can do a little bit of everything.

The secondary difference is attention. In the living room, I’m more apt to give my attention to the TV. In my office, I’m more apt to pay attention to work and shorter distractions.

One exception to the lean forward/sit back rule, is mobile video. More and more people are using portable electronics like laptops, mobile phones, or portable media players to watch TV shows. Mobile video changes all the rules because location can be anywhere. So one minute I may want to check my work e-mail, while in five minutes, I might be ready to relax and watch a random YouTube video.

If the lean forward/sit back axiom essentially boils down to location and attention then I believe that consumer habits will eventually change in the future. Change is already happening, albeit slowly. Researching Internet video consumption for this article, I found that the length of an average online video clip has increased from 2.7 minutes in September 2007, to 3 minutes in December 2008. How we interact with TV  will surely change as well, since TV is finally becoming a lot more like the Web–and vice versa.

Jose Alvear (jose@alvear.com) works as an independent digital media consultant, researcher and analyst. He is currently an IPTV Analyst for Multimedia Research Group, a market intelligence and research company focusing on next-generation TV. He also blogs about digital media at Digital Media Bulletin.

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