While last year, the nomination and eventual win of Star Wars Uncut gave hope that in the future more indie projects would be considered by the Academy of Television Arts and Sciences, this year witnesses a return to the tradition of nominating Fringe “webisodes,” the (admittedly excellent and innovative) digital experience for TBS’s Conan and an NBC.com website about Jay Leno’s cars.

But at the same time web originals are overlooked by awards shows and the digital studios producing them are shuttered, there’s been increased movement in another arena — web-to-television adaptations.

Showtime, for example, premiered Lisa Kudrow and Don Roos’s Web Therapy this week, which originated as a web series produced by L Studio. Web Therapy, based on the first episode, has not changed a bit from the original web version — the actors are still filmed web cam style, the desktop screenshots still drive changes in camera angles. It also jumps right into the story of unconventional therapist Fiona (Kudrow), who’s trying to establish a practice without ever having to leave her desk.

Episodes of the web series would focus on one individual client at a time, and the approach to adapting that for a half-hour format has been a simple one — keeping the one-on-one element of the web series, but structuring the episode as multiple “sessions” with “clients” (who, in the upcoming season, include Victor Garber, Rashida Jones, Jane Lynch, Steven Weber and Lily Tomlin), strung together to make a full-length episode. There is some effort to create a linear narrative within that framework, but the emphasis remains on exploring the depths of Fiona’s dysfunction over a full narrative.

Another group of folks to make the web-to-TV leap lately are comedy duo Rhett and Link, whose branded series I Love Local Commercials has found its way to IFC as Rhett and Link: Commercial Kings. The title’s different but the premise — two guys traveling around the country to make commercials for local businesses — remains the same; the major change made in bringing the series to television is combining the actual commercials and behind-the-scenes footage into a complete package.

Whereas Local Commercials broke apart the commercials produced by Rhett and Link and the behind-the-scenes elements, with an emphasis on the quasi-facetious commercials for small businesses, Commercial Kings frames each episode around the journey of producing the commercials, following Rhett and Link through development and production, revealing the actual commercials for the end. Conceptually, though, it’s a very clean adaptation, and extremely entertaining.

Neither of these shows are necessarily on next year’s Emmys short list (except, perhaps, for Web Therapy‘s admittedly talented cast). But they’re both examples of high-quality content that didn’t require much work to shift from the web to TV. As the lines continue to blur between the two mediums, projects like this will become more and more important — if only as a reminder for Hollywood to keep its eyes on what’s happening on the Internet.

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Overall, car video clips are tantalizing in a number of different ways. Sure, watching car video clips is entertaining, but at the same time they can be instructive, as well. They can teach you to draw automobiles, for example. But you need to be careful with the data. Let me just say that not all of the drawing car video clips are doing this and you can usually tell as a result of the way people draw.

You can also see famous person’s car collections in car video clips, such as famed car enthusiast Jay Leno. For those who like automobiles (like me), Jay’s car video clips are pretty attention-grabbing. He has a wide selection of classic automobiles, classic automobiles, and sports automobiles.

Car video clips are a great source of enjoyment. There is a host of them available on the internet, which are amusing. Stunts involving car drivers who perform some extraordinary feats are also really interesting to watch. For example, while reviewing the high performance Smart Car video clips on Youtube, i ran across a slide show of remarkably detailed kit car bodies.

First person car video clips are also awesome. These car video clips will take you in to any realm of driving you can imagine. See what it feels like inside a Ferrari or Lamborghini.

Car video clips can show you how to do car related crafts like car origami, and how to do car related home interior decorating.

Additionally, you can utilize car video clips when looking for used cars. When looking for used cars a picture is worth a thousand words so a video clip should be worth a million. You can see the used cars you’re considering from lots of different angles, and see the way they move.

Car video clips also come in categories which are like sports automobiles and classic automobiles. They are also categorized by form of car.

This is it. Tonight’s edition of The Tonight Show with Conan O’Brien will be the last one starring Coco. Come March 1, Mr. Bland himself, Jay Leno, re-takes the show, placating NBC’s affiliates and his elderly fans. We’re all Team Conan here, till the bitter end, so you’d better not miss it tonight. Watch it live, DVR it, watch it on Hulu, grab it off some torrent site… just watch it. Conan shall rise again~!

Jill Schlesinger joins the show today after a few months with her presence. A lot has changed since then, we got stickers, the U.S. Senate has 59 Democrats, and now ABC is doing promos for CNET.com. (The 404 Podcast and CNET are owned by CBS.)

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Yep, you read that right. On the ABC show “Modern Family”, Phil and Clair Dunphy argue about a new universal remote control, and in the course of talking about being a male cheerleader, Phil mentions that CNET gave the remote a smokin’ hot “three and a half mice.” Unfortunately, we switched from numbers to stars rather than mice. Jeff and Jill think it’s the new “Arrested Development” on Fox plus “The Office” on NBC.

Speaking of NBC, Jill weighs in on the whole Jay Leno and Conan O’Brien debacle. She wishes she could get paid 40 million dollars not to work, but we’re glad to see Conan sticking up for his staff.

Finally, Jill offers some good financial advice this year. It’s tax season, and she recommends that you readjust your tax withholding because you’re essentially giving the government an interest-free loan for a whole year. Otherwise, whip out a 1040EZ, a glass of scotch and just do your taxes. It ain’t that hard.

EPISODE 502

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New Jersey passed a bill last week legalizing medicinal marijuana, so we begin today’s episode of The 404 Podcast with a quick discussion about the taxation, decriminalization, and dispersion of medicinal marijuana.

Entrepreneur John Lee hopes all the legal attention will give way to e-commerce in the form of B2B exchanges for “licensed providers of medicinal marijuana and their patients.” Lee hopes that the system and his Web site, PlainView.com, will encourage distributors to keep their systems organized with pertinent information on records, invoices, sales reports, and tax paperwork.

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Team Conan!

We also spend good chunk of time dissecting all the drama surrounding Conan O’Brien and “The Tonight Show” being bumped back to 12:05 a.m. to accommodate Jay Leno’s earlier time slot. Conan released a statement last night setting the record straight with an outright refusal to switch times, arguing that a 12:05 a.m. start time is ridiculous for “The Tonight Show.”

Among other things, Conan emphasizes that nothing is more important to him than putting on the best nightly show possible, and we’re in full support–as soldiers in Conan’s army, The 404 is ready to stand tall and follow O’Brien to the ends of the Earth, although we’re secretly hoping for a network switch to CBS.

Many more stories from around the Internet, including one about snowed-in Brits boosting Web traffic to a social network built for infidelity and the latest development for Punxsutawney Phil.

Stick around for the full episode, and don’t forget to send your self-addressed stamped envelope (SASE) to the N.Y. CNET office, addressed to The 404 – STICKERS), to get your hands on your free handful of 404 stickers and temporary tattoos!

EPISODE 497

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I’m pretty sure I wrote the complete opposite story several days ago, but who cares, right? It’s cold and rainy and there’s not much else to talk about. So! As you’re probably well aware, Jay Leno’s new show isn’t doing too well. Why is that? Well, you can try to sit down and analyze if the show is any good or not (note: I haven’t seen the show), or if the show’s earlier time slot isn’t conducive to that type of show. You know, just try to examine what’s going on. That, or you can blame those damn DVRs for ruining everything. Let’s go with that one.

DVRs are now in one-third of Americans households. In the past year, according to Nielsen data, NBC has lost an average rating of 1.8. Simultaneously, DVRs use is up by a ratings point of 1.4.

Coincidence? Maybe, but that’s not how the powers that be are reacting.

Network executives are complaining that, yes, people can skip commercials when viewing shows via DVR. At the same time, they admit that they’d rather have DVR viewers than no viewers at all. That sounds like having their cake, and eating it, too.

Leno’s new show is an interesting one to study. It’s the first really big show to have launched in the DVR era, one that NBC put an awful lot of money behind. (Or don’t you remember all the ads for Leno when the show first debuted?) NBC wanted to make it a nightly show, as opposed to weekly like Saturday Night Live (which would have made it a lot easier to come up with material), so that it would be “DVR-proof.” Like, you can’t DVR the show because he’s talking about today’s news… today.

Only that didn’t happen at all.

If people know that a show is all about topical humor, why would they go back and watch Monday’s show on Thursday night (when they have two hours free)? Let’s assume that tonight Leno runs Tiger Woods jokes, but that on Wednesday, I don’t know, Rush Limbaugh slips on a banana peel while at a political rally. So, do you want to hear Tiger woods jokes or Rush Limbaugh banana peel jokes?

You know what I mean. Because the show is so tied to the day’s events, unless you watch it on the day of release it won’t be worth your while.

So, not DVR-proof but rather DVR cryptonite.

It’s one thing to watched a recorded sitcom a few days later, but a recorded, topical, variety show? That’s a hard sell.

This is before you even factor in that today’s 18-49 year-olds aren’t necessarily going to either A) sit down and watch some TV show live or B) a few days later on DVR delay. We live in an age of streaming Netflix movies, Spotify, iTunes, Xbox Live, PSN, Steam, Twitter, nook and Kindles, etc.

Believe it or not, people can entertain themselves these days without having to sit back and watch TV.

And here’s another idea: maybe Leno’s show just isn’t any good? Again, I haven’t seen it, but I can’t imagine it’s easy coming up with material five days a week, so maybe the product suffers? I never found Leno funny during his run on The Tonight Show, but I know he’s a funny guy. You have to play to your audience. He can’t exactly get away with comedy club-level content on NBC, now can he?

In conclusion, I’m not sure that DVRs, per se, have killed Leno’s show. That’s a gross oversimplification of what’s probably going on: people’s media consumption habits are changing, and NBC relied on people staying in tune with the old model.

But what do I know, I’m over here trying to figure out if I should go AMD or Intel with a gaming PC I’m very close to building.

The timeshifting stat is important to networks because advertisers look at it as well. They would much rather give networks money whose programs are watched live and therefore isn’t a way for viewers to fast forward through commercials. To be honest though, only about half the time I watch something off my TiVo do I skip the commercials. IDK why, maybe I’m just that lazy.

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